


Wish You Were Here

by martygalwrites



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Action/Adventure, But once season 3 content comes out we'll just call it a future AU, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fugitives, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mike & El on the run from the bad men, Road Trips, So this is canon compliant with season 2, Summer 1989, rating wont change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-08-17 05:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16510346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martygalwrites/pseuds/martygalwrites
Summary: It’s a quiet summer evening in 1989 when all the shit festering in Hawkins comes back from the dead after about 5 years of normalcy. After a tip that his worst nightmare is on the first bus back into town, Jim Hopper sets his paranoia-fueled back up plan into motion – to get his daughter as far away from the threat as fast as possible.Only he knows his daughter, and he knows she would never leave her family to deal with the mess she felt like she made. So, he enlists the help of the only other person he is entirely confident would die to protect her if he had to – her boyfriend.Anxious Mike Wheeler and a reluctant El Hopper embark on a road trip with no end in sight, on the run from the bad men that still haunt both their dreams. With this, they are forced to confront the darkness barreling toward them – supernatural or otherwise – and defeat it one last time.





	1. The Night Shift

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiii pretty people!!
> 
> I haven't written in a while, busy with life things. But, I've been sitting on this one for a while, and thought I'd just post it and see what happens. My first chaptered fic lol... here we go!
> 
> \-----
> 
> Hopper gets a tip from a familiar face that all is not well for his family in Hawkins, and sets his emergency plan in motion. Meanwhile, Mike can’t figure out why he can’t just get to sleep already.

_June 12th, 1989 – 7:08 PM_

 

As the night grew on, Hopper felt as if the stale yellow lights in his office were buzzing just to annoy him. They were blinking too. Not in any type of peculiar way, just in the way that pissed him off. It set his teeth on edge, but it was his fault that he had paperwork to finish. If someone would have told him about all the paperwork before he went to the police academy, he might have chosen another path in life. So, he blamed his current suffering on himself.

 

In an effort to refocus (and to avoid reaching for those emergency Marlboro Lights he kept in his bottom left desk drawer), Hopper stood up to stretch his legs. A few steps around the office couldn’t hurt him. He found himself roaming aimlessly in-between the tables and chairs, peeking onto other peoples’ desks. He looked at the pictures and calendars and flyers that adorned the paint-chipped walls. There were smiling families. A couple of posters for lost pets and bikes.

 

Above Flo’s desk, there were groups of pictures of the station at holiday parties past, dating back decades. The faces were faded and some of them were now course with age and experience. Some of the people had cycled through, moved away, retired, passed on. As he thought to himself about what ever happened to that George McDermott that graduated two years above him and joined the force when he moved to New York, he noticed something. Hopper wasn’t in a single picture until about four years ago.

 

He had been to these holiday parties in the past, and hell, they usually sucked ass. Someone always overcooked something, the Secret Santa gifts were always disappointing (somehow, Hopper always ended up with a coffee mug and a fresh pack of cigarettes), and he was always surrounded by the people he worked with – the people he didn’t want to be around in his free time. So, he would stop by, drop off his gift (a 12 pack of Budweiser) and pick up his coffee mug, and get on with his night. That came to a stop though, around five years ago.

 

For the snapshot of Christmas ’87, all were gathered around Powell, who was showing out for the girl he chose to drag along with him whose name Hopper didn’t even bother to catch at the time. He had a pair of sunglasses on, and a cap on sideways. Rolling his eyes, Hopper’s focus shifted to the back-right corner where he was standing. El was standing on her tip toes to the left of him so that she would be visible in the back row, a cheap Santa’s hat sat lopsided on her head, smiling as big as ever. He remembered when Flo brought the developed pictures a couple of weeks after, how he had to bite back a few tears. It had been the happiest he’d seen her in a long time.

 

Christmas ’88 was a similar story, except this time El was held piggy-back by Steve Harrington, just so that she was tall enough to hold the mistletoe over an oblivious Powell, who had his arm around a different woman than the year before. Hopper stifled a laugh, and crossed the room.

 

Those few steps led him to the corkboard that hung to the right of the entryway. There were always notices from officers, the occasional wedding invitation, a couple of baby pictures, along with a picture of a cheeky Harrington at his graduation from the police academy. He smiled at that, remembering the party afterword Steve had thrown. El had begged him to go, and he reluctantly let her, and pretended not to notice when she and Will came home smelling like whatever cheap beer kids were into these days. He didn’t even ask.

 

Next to that was the newest edition; the edges of the freshly developed image were still crisp and flat unlike the rest. This was the picture he was most proud of, the only one in the office he had proudly hung himself.

 

Standing in front of a red velvet curtain, El had the biggest smile on her face. She held her newly-received high school diploma out in front of her, the black graduation cap slipping off to the side of her head just a little. As Hopper remembered, she had tried all day to pin that damned hat to her head, when in the end she just tossed it during the ceremony. She was pretty peeved about the whole thing, but Mike Wheeler had made sure to take her picture under the “Hawkins High Class of ‘89” banner that hung above the stage anyway. Hopper was really glad he did.

 

The phone rang.

 

It made him jump, just a little. The shrill bell cut through the air like a knife, reminding him exactly where he was. A second ring.

 

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” Hopper said, to no one in particular.

 

Probably those damn Petevsky kids out doing god-knows-what.

 

“Hawkins Police Department, this is –“

 

“Jim?” the voice on the other line shot back before he could finish his sentence. _Shit._ He really hoped that voice didn’t belong to who he thought it belonged to.

 

“Uh… yeah. May I ask who’s calling?”

 

“Jim, this is Murray Bauman,” the voice said.

 

It all came flooding back to him then. The last time Hopper had seen or heard of the likes of him was in ’84, when he had written him a check…

 

_“…for your trouble.” Hopper said, slipping the envelope into Murray’s hands. After taking a quick look inside, Murray slipped it into his interior jacket pocket._

 

_“Oh, Jim, that’s really not necessary, you know – “_

 

_“I know you’re going to keep your nose out of my town.”_

 

_“Seeing as the case is closed, yes,” he replied. “But if you hear anything about that Russian girl…” he trailed, a knowing, teasing smile on his lips. Hopper loathed it._

 

_“Yeah, yeah, and one more thing,” Hopper said, taking a step closer. “Keep an eye out for a Dr. Martin Brenner for me, would you? If he shows up anywhere, for any reason, you call me.”_

 

_Murray nodded._

 

_“I see.”_

 

_“I can’t imagine you’d hear anything, but just… do it. Understand?”_

 

_“Won’t be a problem,” Murray said, with a sleazy smile, before sneaking back off to his van and disappearing down Main Street. Never to be seen or heard from again…_

 

“Bauman?”

 

“I have an update on your target.”

 

“My target?” _What target…_

 

“I’d assume you’d rather not discuss this over the phone?”

 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he answered, trying to sound casual, but instinctively checking his surroundings and reaching for that bottom left drawer.

 

“I’ll be with you in 5,” Murray said, and just like that the line went dead.

 

Hopper took in a deep breath. _Surely_ that call wasn’t about who he thought it was about, although he had no idea what else it could be. After years of nothing, he thought for sure he was really dead. He had every reason to believe so.

 

El maintained that all through her high school years. Any hesitation from Hopper about seeing a movie or going shopping at that damned new mall was met with an eyeroll and a brash reminder…

 

_“He’s dead, remember?” El said, curtly, her eyes flashing dark, but just for a second. “I have nothing to worry about, neither do you.”_

 

That memory felt cold and distant. He had believed her. He felt like, out of everyone, she would be the one to know. He didn’t want to ask questions, to press any further. Especially about that, about him. If she felt safe, then she was. Simple as that. On that logic, the past five years had gone by pretty smooth.

 

The more the silence continued, the more the lights above him buzzed, the more Hopper stared at El’s graduation picture on the corkboard… the more frantic his thoughts became. They whizzed around in his brain, and he slowly but surely lost the ability to control them. He reached for that emergency cigarette box in his bottom left drawer, lit up, and waited.

 

With each passing second, Hopper could only feel more and more regret. And why, he wasn’t entirely sure.

 

( _Did El really think he was dead?_

 

_Or was she just lying to make him feel better._

 

_But, she wouldn’t lie… would she?_

 

 _Unless, she was lying to make_ herself _feel better…_ )

 

But, none of it mattered now. His mind jumping from place to darker place, he took another drag of the cigarette.

 

He planned for this, he remembered. He never thought it would happen, but he had planned for it anyway. He had always been paranoid, he had just pushed it away, to the far corners of his mind where it was lying in wait – ready to reach out and grab him.

 

Another drag.

 

He should have seen this coming. He should have _known._ Hopper was slipping, spiraling internally – his heart rate matching how fast he was thinking about his next step, when –

 

_Tap tap tap tap tap._

 

Hopper jolted, putting the butt of his cigarette out in an old cup of coffee and rushing to the door.

 

When he opened it, he saw the exact same annoying little man he had known five years ago. Not a thing about Murray Bauman was different, sneaky look in his eye and all.

 

“What is this business about ‘my target?’” Hopper asked, trying to sound like he hadn’t been meditating on the matter in the excruciating minutes between his phone call and Bauman’s arrival at the station.

 

“Dr. Martin Brenner. What. A. Case!” Bauman replied, walking right past Hopper and into his office as if he was returning back home from a long day at work.

 

“At first, I thought you gave me something just to keep me busy.”

 

Hopper stared at him as if he had gone insane (which he may or may not have) as he tried his best to mask all the thoughts that were swimming in his brain. Murray was completely unphased, slamming down a large stack of files and folders in front of him on the nearest desk. He started to rifle through them while keeping eye contact with Hopper and pressing on.

 

“Or maybe he was just some old hack from the old Department of Energy Lab that you wanted to make sure got the axe in ’84 during that… uh… _mass casualty_. I knew I had heard that name before.”

 

He stood still, and could only nod his head in response.

 

“But then…”

 

The space between what Murray had just said and what he was about to say seemed absolutely infinite.

 

“I heard some chatter.”

 

Murray opened a green file, and fished for a piece of paper, still moving at a pace that almost made Hopper’s head spin. How on earth could he know anything in this mess?

 

“About a year ago. A Dr. Martin Brenner. In New York! Now, I thought ‘that’s a pretty common name’ but _then_ they mentioned something about him being in the WPP and _that_ was obviously a huge red flag.”

 

“The WPP?”

 

“Witness Protection,” he answered without missing a beat. Everything he said seemed rehearsed, like he had spent the entire car ride over perfecting every line.

 

“Long story short, your guy is back on the grid.” Bauman said, finally coming to rest with his papers. Hopper felt his blood pressure rise even further (if that were possible), and his lungs ached for another cigarette, bit his feet stayed nailed to the floor. He was stuck.

 

“The grid? What do you mean by the grid?” Hopper asked, his voice hushed, despite the fact that no one was around to hear them. Force of habit.

 

“I mean, I have your guy.”

 

“You have him?” Hopper asked tentatively.

 

“He’s in Indianapolis. Here!” Murray passed him the green folder. “Here are his flight records.” He shuffled some more papers out of his interior coat pocket. “And here are copies of the record for the hotel in Indianapolis he’s been living out of for… eh… about a week now.”

 

Hopper studied the coffee stained, crumpled up papers, and lo and behold, there he was. Along with his flight records, there was a photo ID image plastered on. Staring back at him was Martin Brenner’s face, still cold as ice. The years the years had worn it down, the lines were deeper and the look in his eyes was even more distant. But it was him, Hopper knew it was him.

 

“He’s been in hiding, as far as I can tell.” Bauman kept on. “Since ’83. Maybe ’84.”

 

Hopper sifted through the papers, his expression hardening with every passing moment.

 

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

 

“Maybe he’s been living under an alias. No way of tracing that, unless of course, we have the alias.” Murray laughed at his own words, but Hopper couldn’t be bothered. In fact, he wasn’t really listening anymore. The gears in his head were turning, dusting off thoughts in a corner of his mind he never dreamed he’d have to visit again.

 

“You’re sure.” Hopper said. It wasn’t really a question.

 

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Bauman answered, smiling. Pleased with himself.

 

It made Hopper’s stomach churn, but he forced a smile and a nod.

 

“Well, it’s been really nice to see you, Bauman. It really has. But, I have business I really should be tending to,” he said, moving towards the door to show Murray back out to the parking lot.

 

“Business? It’s an empty office. It’s almost 8:00!” Bauman responded, backing out the door. He laughed as Hopper pressed him towards the humid summer night from wince he came.

 

“Yeah, in the middle of summer. Kids are out of school…” Another step, and Murray was back out the door, still facing him. The yellow light from the office shining off his glasses.

 

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he said, with that same, slippery smile.

 

“Thanks, Bauman,” Hopper said, trying his best to sound sincere.

 

“If you can ever find it in your heart to repay me, I’m still looking for that Russian girl…” Bauman said with a wink. Hopper would have shut down his reply with a hasty denial for the hell of it, but he had already shut the door. In fact, he was already deep within his office, fumbling around for a little brown lock box. Damn it all if he had lost it. He never thought he’d need it, so he hadn’t taken great care in making sure he remembered where it was… how stupid that had been.

 

As he shuffled though the depths of his drawers, he picked up the phone on his desk and dialed home without even looking up.

 

“Hello?” the voice on the other end rang out.

 

“Joyce,” Hopper responded, “Listen.”

 

“Hey! How’s the night shift going? “she teased.

 

He figured the answer to her question would come the longer she stayed on the line.

 

“I need you to meet me up here. Its urgent.”

 

“Why? What is it?” her tone wavered, switching almost immediately to worrisome. He didn’t want to trouble her over the phone.

 

“Just get up here. Please?”

 

“Do I need to bring the k– “

 

“No,” Hopper cut her off. “No, don’t tell them you’re coming to meet me, just slip out. Can you bring the wagon?”

 

Just as she answered yes, Hopper’s hands finally landed on that little brown lock box. Sifting through his giant ring of keys and cursing himself, Hopper looked for the right fit.

 

“Come on,” he grunted, shaking the key as he turned it. Once the lock clicked open, he breathed a small sigh of relief. Miraculously, everything was still there, just as he left it. He almost laughed to himself… Once he had actually thrown this whole plan together a couple of years ago, it was a fail-safe. A last resort. He took a deep breath.

 

_This is never going to work._

 

After a few moments in the silence, lost in his thoughts, staring at El’s picture on the cork board, and waiting to hear Joyce’s tires on the pavement outside, his answer hit him.

 

_Unless…_

 

=========

 

_June 13th, 1989 – 3:36 AM_

 

It wasn’t a good night of sleep anyway.

 

Despite how painstakingly average the day was, Mike had felt like something was just… off. And what really pissed him off was that he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

 

It had been a scorcher, with the temperatures “projected to be the 2nd highest on record!” Holly so promptly informed him as he cranked up the AC in his car on his way to take her to the pool. He had rolled his eyes, only to be met a bright red sunburn by the afternoon.

 

Max had been there today, off of work. She and El had opted to spend the majority of their time by the pool gushing over some new novel that had hit the shelves the week before. Not that he minded. Will was there too, albeit he arrived a little late. He told Mike to put sunscreen on, and he didn’t listen.

 

They sat around in the sun it crept down below the tree line, which was when he drove El and Will back home just in time for Ms. Byers to offer him a seat at the dinner table – one he would have to politely decline. He knew his dad was cooking out tonight for God-knows-why. So, he had to be home. No funny business.

 

Shockingly enough, dinner was uneventful. More talk about college this, and responsibility that. Mike stared blankly at his baked beans. Still, despite having an alright day, something felt off. Like a picture being just a little off center when you get it developed.

 

_“Michael, your nose looks red.”_

 

_“Yeah, I know.”_

 

_“Did you put sunscreen on?”_

 

_“No, I forgot.”_

 

_“Responsibility, Michael…”_

 

_“I know, I know.”_

 

And that had been it.

 

But still he tossed and turned, only finding sleep in rare patches of the night. He wasn’t having any nightmares. He didn’t have anything to be nervous about… that he knew of. He still felt weird, nevertheless. He would call El, but he didn’t want to bother her about it – whatever it was – if she was asleep. He would see her tomorrow, they were going to grab dinner on Main Street. If he still felt weird then, he would tell her.

 

When he woke up for what felt like the zillionth time around 3:00, he thought he would radio El, just in case. Maybe she could tell him why he couldn’t get to sleep. She always did a good job of clearing his mind anyway. He would apologize, but he really wanted to hear her voice.

 

He tried twice, and didn’t get an answer. Static. He sat his walkie back on his bedside table with a groan into his pillow. What was _wrong_ with him?

 

His mind was still wrestling with unconsciousness when he heard what sounded like a soft knock at his window.

 

Mike sat up, blinking. His clock shown 3:36. It had been about 12 minutes since the last time he checked.

 

_Tap…_

 

_…tap…_

 

_…tap_

 

This time it was a little more defined, more urgent. There was definitely someone at his window.

 

 _That’s why El wasn’t answering_ , he thought. _She was just on her way over_.

 

It wasn’t a far bike ride, she came over sometimes when she couldn’t sleep… maybe she had been feeling just as off as he was.

 

Throwing himself out of bed and rubbing sleep out of his eyes, Mike shuffled over to the window.

 

Where he expected to see El’s face was just the empty, foggy glass. The faint yellow light from the nearest street lamp unphased by anything blocking light. What on earth had been making that noise? Whatever it was, he couldn’t see it. Mike was now fully awake, adrenaline pumping through his veins and his palms starting to sweat. He could feel his hair sticking to his forehead.

 

 _There’s a good chance this is a nightmare,_ Mike reminded himself.

 

But it wasn’t.

 

More timidly than he would care to admit, he stepped towards the window. In a last-ditch effort to protect himself, Mike grabbed a dusty, old toy light saber from behind his bed – it hadn’t been touched in years, probably. Mike opened the window with the end of the light saber, and it creaked up slowly.

 

In the silent summer night, he heard a whistle.

 

That was when he swallowed his childish fear and stepped up to the window, and he was relieved (and then scared all over again) to find Hopper in his driveway, leaning up against the hood of Will’s mom’s car.

 

“Is… is everything okay?” Mike whispered out into the night. “What are you doing here?”

 

All Hopper did was nod at him, signaling for him to come down and meet him. Something was wrong. Mike wordlessly backed up a couple of steps, and made his way towards Nancy’s old bedroom – her window was right over the garage, and ever since she had moved out for college, Mike had made sure to use that window to his advantage.

 

Within a minute, Mike was standing in front of Hopper in his pajamas, breathing a little too hard to be proud of himself for making it off of the garage roof unscathed.

 

“Oh, so _that’s_ how you sneak out of there. And I always thought you just jumped.” Hopper said, whispering.

 

Mike rolled his eyes in response.

 

“What are you talking about?” He was painfully aware how much he sounded like a liar. “I don’t sneak out of the – “

 

“Listen, kid, I’m not in the mood.”

 

“Then what are you doing here?”

 

Hopper smelled like cigarette smoke. That, to Mike, was the giveaway that something was really wrong. There was a reason he felt off. He wasn’t going insane. He swallowed.

 

The only person who ever kept Hopper from smoking was El, and if she were here, she would really let him have it about how she could smell it on him. The more confident a communicator she became, the more she would whip the cigarette in Hopper’s hand into the nearest cup of liquid with a flick of her head.

 

Mike could see the scene in his mind perfectly, at dinner a couple of years ago when Hopper came back from the store with a box in his right hand and a shopping bag in his left.

 

“ _Those are bad for you.”_

 

 _“I know, but what really matters is that_ you _don’t –“_

 

_“Have you ever heard of second-hand smoke?”_

 

El finally coaxed him to quit, argument after argument. Mike figured he snuck the occasional smoke every now and again, but he didn’t want to be the one to tell her that.

 

Back in the present, Hopper sighed, his eyes trained on the driveway where Holly’s chalk drawings painted the pavement.

 

“I need to ask you a favor,” Hopper said, his eyes unmoving from the faded sunflowers and rainbows.

 

Mike took a quick breath.

 

“Is El okay?”

 

“Yes,” he responded, annoyed. “She’s in the car.”

 

Mike looked past him to see El, asleep in the passenger seat, hugging the pillow that sat between her head and the leather.

 

“She’s asleep.”

 

“I can see that.” Mike responded. “Why? What are you doing here at 3:00 in the morning?”

 

Hopper took his right hand and moved it up to rub his brow. He closed his eyes for a brief moment before standing up all the way off the hood of the car and moving away from it, like he didn’t want El to hear, even though they both knew she was a heavy sleeper.

 

At full height, Mike was proud to say he was almost as tall as Hopper. Almost.

 

“Look, I don’t really know how to ask you to do this. So, I’m just gonna…”

 

An agonizing pause.

 

“…start talking.”

 

Mike stared blankly ahead at Hopper, waiting to hear what he had to say. Was he skipping town? Taking El on a vacation without telling her? Dropping her off? None of his ideas made any sense, so he chose to listen instead of guess – a pretty rare occurrence, he figured. He chalked it up to being startled out of bed a few minutes prior.

 

 _This still could be a nightmare_ , Mike reminded himself. Although, he feared, he was wrong about that too.

 

“In the event of anyone… finding us, I always had a backup plan. Ever since El started school. Just in case. I saved up some cash, made some false papers, untraceable license plates and car registration. Just because I was so… paranoid.” Hopper swallowed.

 

Mike nodded.

 

“The plan being to just get her out of town while I deal with things, with people. You know. Make sure she was as far away from them as possible. I dunno. Send her with a map out west to the middle of nowhere for her to hide out for a second.”

 

“And then, I actually got to know her. I know how her mind works. The way she thinks through her problems. I know how stubborn she is,” he stifled a small laugh. “And I know, without a doubt in my mind, that she would never leave any of us here to fight any battles for her…”

 

Mike nodded his head again, ignoring the way his pulse quickened as he listened to Hoppers words. He pushed away the questions in the back of his mind ( _Who do you have to deal with? Where out of town? For how long?_ ).

 

Hopper nodded this time, finishing his thought as he met Mike’s eyes.

 

“By herself.”

 

Mike’s eyes narrowed. Hopper continued.

 

“I’ve gotten some information that they, um…” he trailed off, almost like he was evaluating whether or not he _really needed_ to finish that sentence. “I really need you to take her out of town. Just for a little while.”

 

Mike was dumfounded.

 

“How long is a _little while_?”

 

“Just until I can take care of things.”

 

“Take care of who?” Mike took a step closer, and the volume of his voice rose too. Hopper shushed him.

 

“Why don’t you let me worry about that.”

 

“Where am I – “Mike started. “Where are _we_ supposed to go?”

 

“I feel like it’s best if you don’t tell me.”

 

“ _What_?” Mike spat, a little bit louder this time. “I mean… _what_! Do you realize how crazy this sounds? _You_ just want _me_ to just drive off and not tell you where I’m going?” He felt the words just falling out of his mouth. “You think I’m a terrible driver!”

 

“Geez, and I thought you’d be excited,” Hopper snorted, but it was cold. Forced. Mike wasn’t nervously laughing though. Not this time.

 

“Kid,” he started. “Please. I swear, this is our best bet.”

 

Mike wasn’t so sure.

 

Maybe it would help if Hopper would tell him what this perceived threat actually was. Or maybe it would make more sense if their friends tagged along too – isn’t there strength in numbers? And he was surprised Hopper picked him in the first place… what sane father sends their daughter off in a car with her boyfriend in the middle of the night to not tell them where they were going?

 

 _This is some kind of test,_ Mike thought. One glance at El, still passed out in the passenger seat, and her bag in the back, made him think otherwise. _Dammit._

 

As far as he knew, aside from the occasional nightmare and her fear of loud storms, El was doing just fine. Just normal. She made it through high school. She had a family. Hopper adopted her. She had friends. Mike thought that fixed a lot – if not all – of her problems. And she hadn’t caught any attention from suspicious neighbors either. Everyone in town believed she was Hopper’s kid – transferred to his custody from her mother in the city. People whispered, but not for the reasons he feared. Just bullshit reasons.

 

Monsters and darkness and other dimensions were things of the past, and if Mike was being completely honest, they didn’t even feel like they actually happened. The only thing that reminded Mike that El had any type of superpowers was her blatant refusal to get up and change the television channel. All of the circumstances in which he met El in the first place just didn’t feel real. They never talked about it. He didn’t like to think about it, and neither did she.

 

Mike wiped the palms of his hands on his flannel pajama pants.

 

This was the first time – in a really long time – that he had to confront just how different El really was. He always felt like they would talk about it someday. He wanted to know what happened to her when she was a kid, even though he knew it would just make him sick. He was still curious, and he figured that one day she would be ready to tell him about it. He didn’t think that day would be coming anytime soon.

 

“I will take care of explaining to your mom.”

 

Mike barely registered that Hopper was still talking to him.

 

“Just sneak back in your house and grab a bag and pack as much as you can.”

 

Mike still didn’t move, his fingers twitching and his eyes trained on one particular pebble on the driveway.

 

“Try to be quick, and don’t wake anyone up.”

 

Mike’s eyes moved back up to meet Hoppers’ but he still didn’t make any moves. Hopper leaned back against the hood of the car, and pulled out a box of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket. Mike watched, a slight disapproving grimace on his face.

 

“Do this for her, okay? She needs you to.”

 

He lit it up, and took a drag.

 

“Just doesn’t know it yet.”

 

\---------

 

Ten minutes later, Mike yawned as he traipsed back across the driveway, fully dressed and duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Hopper dropped his cigarette butt on the driveway and pressed it with the sole of his boot. He motioned Mike around to the back of the car.

 

“These license plates are new and registered under a fake name. That shouldn’t be a problem for you since you would _never_ speed past a state trooper and get pulled over, but just in case…” Hopper whispered.

 

Mike rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to get pulled over.”

 

Hopper didn’t even bother to respond, passing Mike a thick and worn manila envelope.

 

“In here are some false ID papers, and some cash to get you through.”

 

“How much money is in here?” Mike asked.

 

“A little over…” Hopper stalled. “ten thousand.”

 

Mike’s eyes flew open as wide as he’d ever felt them go.

 

“DOLLARS?” he whisper-yelled. Hopper shushed him.

 

“Yes.” The confirmation didn’t lessen Mike’s expression. “To be used for food, gas, and cheap places to stay only, you got that?”

 

“Yes sir,” Mike answered.

 

“My spare pistol is in the glove compartment.” Hopper said. “You remember how to use that one, right?” He didn’t stop to hear Mike respond. “There’s a box of ammo in there too. _Emergencies only_.”

 

“Of course,” Mike said. He could hear his voice shaking.

 

Of course, he remembered shooting cans out behind Hopper’s old cabin a couple of winters ago. _Just in_ case, he thought at the time. It sent a shiver through him to realize – that _just in case_ feeling in the back of his head that made him ask Hopper to teach him to shoot a gun was probably the same one that made Hopper save up all this money and forge all these papers.

 

_Shit._

 

“Just, take the car, pick a direction, and drive. There’s a map in the console.” Hopper continued on, almost like he had practiced this speech in the car on the way over. “Don’t tell me where you’re going. Don’t tell any of your friends either. Don’t call them. Don’t write to them. The more people who know where you are, the easier it will be to find you. I’ll tell them what they need to know. Understand?”

 

Another nod, and after a second of thought…

 

“Wait…” Mike started. “How are we going to know when it’s okay to come back?” _If it’s ever okay to come back?_

 

Mike looked wistfully off in the direction of his house, thinking for the first time of what his mother was going to think. What Holly was going to think. He didn’t even want to know what his dad was going to think.

 

“Every Sunday, at 7:30 eastern time – mind the time changes – I’ll be talking.” Mike’s forehead creased in confusion. “You tell her to come _find me_ ,” Hopper said, and Mike remembered. “I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come home.”

 

“Okay,” Mike said, nodding his head. “Okay.”

 

It wasn’t okay.

 

“My mom…” Mike trailed.

 

“I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of her.”

 

“When El figures it out… when I tell her why we’re leaving town… she’s going to want to come back,” Mike said. To his surprise, Hopper actually stopped to listen. Nodding, as if he knew Mike wasn’t done talking. “She doesn’t want you to deal with… anything, _anyone_ … alone. She wants you to be safe. So do I.”

 

No one wanted to keep El out of the grasp of bad intentions more than Mike. Maybe with the exception of the man standing in front of him, Mike thought, even though they sometimes disagreed on just what that looked like.

 

All events of the past 20 minutes considered, Mike was pretty sure keeping El away from whatever threat was headed towards Hawkins was probably for the best. And, if he was being honest with himself, he knew what the threat was. _Who_ the threat was. What convinced him, _finally_ convinced him, to climb into the front seat of the car and put it in reverse was that _Hopper agreed with him_.

 

“I won’t come back until you say it’s safe,” Mike said. Hopper leaned into the window.

 

“Even if she tries to make you?”

 

Mike nodded.

 

Hopper shoved Mike’s bag in the backseat next to the one he’d packed for El (the bag was actually, Will’s, Mike noticed) and closed the door as quietly as he could. The passenger seat was still. Mike envied her. He was a shitty sleeper, and she would probably miss the end of the world.

 

“Don’t let her be too mad at you for too long,” he said, an uneasy laugh escaping him as he did. “You’re doing the right thing.”

 

Without another word, Hopper passed the envelope through the window.

 

“Be smart with that money.”

 

Mike nodded again.

 

“I will.”

 

“And the gun is for emergencies only.”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

“And be safe, will you?”

 

As he shifted the car into drive, Mike watched him take a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and light it up. Mike was waiting for him to turn and saunter off in the direction of his house, which was really only a few blocks over and to the left. He had the route memorized like the back of his hand, and he laughed to himself just a little remembering the day that Will told him they were moving. They were _all_ moving. Together. So close.

 

But then, he remembered where he was. What he was doing.

 

Hopper stayed put, watching the car drive out of the cul-de-sac. Mike watched him take a drag through the rear-view mirror, and once he crested the hill, Hopper was out of sight. For some strange reason, Mike breathed a sigh of relief. A loud one too.

 

El shifted in the passenger seat at the noise, causing Mike to whip his head around waiting to meet her eyes. Instead, she sighed in her sleep and hugged her pillow even tighter to her torso and brought her knees in closer. Figuring she was cold, Mike fumbled with the air conditioning with one hand while shakily driving out of the neighborhood with the other.

 

He couldn’t help but watch her sleep in between lengthy glances at the road ahead of him. She looked so peaceful and so blissfully unaware. Part of him wanted her to stay that way for as long as possible. He knew, once her eyes opened to focus on the dawn of a new day, she would have questions for him that he couldn’t answer. Not without her getting angry at the response.

 

He knew she wouldn’t be happy knowing Hopper was left alone to deal with whatever mess she felt like she created. She would want to go back, demand he turn the car around, give him the cold shoulder for a few hours.

 

She had spoken to him before about it, the guilt. After some time passed, she would tell him about her nightmares – of tunnels, dark and spooky forests, and the Upside Down. With time, all those faded away and became shadowy memories that no one dared speak of – as if speaking about it would bring it back into their reality. What really bothered her after all this time was the guilt, she would say, with tears in her eyes.

 

El’s steady breath was starting to cause the window to fog. Mike smiled.

 

She felt the guilt when Will had to go to the doctor. When she saw the pictures of Barbara Holland in Nancy’s old room. When Max woke up from nightmares filled with screaming monsters. When Will’s mom sat on their porch in the mornings, distant and lost in thought about Bob Newby. She had even felt it when Ms. Henderson went on and on about their lost cat from a couple of years ago.

 

It was because of this that Mike tried his hardest to keep his most violent and real nightmares to himself. Sometimes, in the silence of the middle of the night, he could still hear Bob’s scream.

 

It was everywhere for her. Everything – every inconvenience – made her feel at fault. Mike spent a great amount of mental energy focusing on ways to convince her that wasn’t true. Because it wasn’t. Every time he tried, she always thanked him for being supportive and patient. But Mike still had the sneaky feeling that she was just saying that so he wouldn’t waste anymore breath. He knew she felt horrible for the damage she caused. Even though she didn’t mean to, and all the wounds in Hawkins were healing.

 

He mindlessly took a right at the red light on Elm, and decided it was time he start focusing on where he was actually going.

 

He knew the streets of Hawkins like the back of his hand. He’d never driven that far outside the town, so passing the Hawkins city limit sign felt a little like space travel.

 

He always knew he would leave someday, or at least he hoped he would. Mike knew his departure for college was coming up soon. _August 27th,_ he reminded himself. He’d been dreading it, if he was being completely honest – it being saying goodbye to El. Not like he didn’t have a way to talk to her or like he’d never see her again. But, still. That didn’t mean he was super eager to see her standing in his rear-view mirror in the same way he had just seen Hopper about 15 minutes ago. But, just like a lot of their past and childhood traumas, Mike and El just felt it best if they just didn’t talk about it at all.

 

He never pictured leaving Hawkins like this. In the middle of the night with his one duffle bag in the back. His sleeping and unsuspecting girlfriend in the passenger seat.

 

_Oh God, this isn’t kidnapping, is it? I’m not going to jail, right?_

 

It was then that Mike decided his brain was a little too worn out for all this deep thinking. So, he just kept his eyes on the road and listened to the very small and distant sound of the radio.

 

At the next stoplight, his headlights bounced off the red and blue marker for Highway 30.

 

 _Good enough for me_ , he thought to himself. _We’ll end up somewhere sooner or later._

 

He wasn’t even one hundred percent sure where Highway 30 would take them. But that was the point, was it?

 

Merging on to the dark and deserted highway, Mike chose to take advantage of his quiet time while El snoozed all curled up in her pillow to figure out exactly what he was going to say to her when she woke up and realized they were about 400 miles away from home.

 

Blinding him, another bright green sign caught his attention.

 

**INDIANA HIGHWAY 30 TO PLYMOTH, VALPARAISO, CHICAGO**

 

 _Chicago it is_ , Mike thought to himself, glancing over at El, still passed out cold.

 

_El’s going to love Chicago._


	2. The Box of Wishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> El wakes up in a car with Mike barreling towards both Chicago and an unearthed secret she’s been keeping for five years. While Mike tries to convince El that he’ll be able to turn their predicament into a vacation, she still worries for her family and for the side of her that she fears will hurt them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the kind words on the first chapter!!! They were incredibly appreciated, I can't say thanks enough. Y'all are too sweet. 
> 
> Sorry for the delay in the second chapter... I got swept up in holiday travel and being busy. Here's part two, nonetheless! 
> 
> Enjoy!!!!

_The night around her is as hazy as she’s ever seen, but El can still feel it. Before she can see the skyline, before she can smell the street. Slowly but surely, she becomes aware that she is very uncomfortable – her back is killing her, and the heater under the seat is making her sweat through her jeans._

 

_Heater. Under her seat._

 

_She’s on a bus. The rattle of the engine shakes her, and suddenly she realizes…_

 

I’m going in the wrong direction.

 

_With shaky hands, El takes a deep breath and moves to stand up. As she looks toward the front of the bus, it stretches impossibly far away from her. Standing makes her dizzy, nauseous. But she has to go, she has to walk. She has to tell the bus driver that they’re going the wrong way._

 

_Everyone else on the bus is asleep, with their hoods up and hats down – covering their faces to the harsh interior lights of the bus. El takes cautious steps_ , _with each hand on a seat propelling her forward –_ left right left right left _– until she stumbles. It feels like an invisible rope is holding her back. Hands are around her waist, it seems, and she tries to shake them off without checking for a face to go with them._

 

I’ve gotta save them, _El thinks, about the people in the seats in front of her, oblivious to their imminent demise. For the first time, El realizes how fast the bus is moving – the trees are whizzing by at a speed that makes her dizzy all over again. El wavers, and leans on the nearest seat back to regain her balance._

 

_With agonizing slowness, she moves herself from seat to seat. Creeping past the sleeping passengers, finally making it to the front of the bus. She reaches out a hand, and –_

 

_“Jane.”_

 

_The voice is stern, but recognizable._

 

_Kali, exactly the same as the day she had known her. She grabs El’s hand from the seat on the left, right behind the driver._

 

_“I have to go, I have to stop it.”_

 

_“You can’t,” she said. “Not like this.”_

 

_El still moved a hand forward, to get the drivers attention, and Kali grabbed El, moving her into a nearby seat. She covered El’s mouth with a gloved hand. Except it wasn’t a plain black glove, it was a slimy, sterile, blue medical glove. El’s eyes widened._

 

_“I told you, this is not the way, Jane,” Kali whispered._

 

_El grabbed Kali’s wrist and yanked her hand away._

 

_“That’s not my name,” she said through gritted teeth._

 

_“Then what is it?”_

 

_El couldn’t answer for some reason, even though she tried. She was screaming in her mind._ El. El! My name is El! _But her mouth stayed shut._

 

_“It’s Eleven, right?” Both girls snapped their head’s forward, following the cold sound. El felt a shiver work its way up her spine. “That’s your name. Eleven. It’s right there. On your wrist.”_

 

_El didn’t have to see the face to recognize the voice. The dizzy nausea was back. Her neck suddenly hurt. The heat of the heater burned into her calves, it was almost unbearable, but she couldn’t move. Absolutely frozen in place despite the urgent need to respond. To run._

 

_El looked to Kali, but she was just gone._

 

_“No, NO! You have to help me!”_

 

_A shadow emerged over her then, blocking the nearby overhead light. El slowly turned to look at it, as she was filled with such dread she could feel her stomach churn. The pain in her back throbbed._

 

_Papa’s face looked down on her, darker than the rest of his surroundings due to the light behind him._

 

_“Not to worry,” he said. “We are not going the wrong way.”_

 

_She screamed, unsure of what the outcome would be, but she just hoped for something to happen_. _To push him, to kill him, she didn’t care. Nothing came of it though, and he still loomed, laughing._

 

_“You’re exactly where you need to be.”_

 

\---------

 

_June 13, 1989 – 7:48 AM_

_South of Chicago_

 

With a sharp breath El is awake, for real this time. The bad dream fades away from her mind as she blinks her eyes open in her suspiciously bright room.

 

Except it’s not her room, it’s a road. It’s not her bed, she’s strapped into the passenger seat of Joyce’s car.

 

Her neck is stiff from laying upright and on her side. And for how long? Groaning, her left hand comes to rub her eyes. What the _hell._

 

She’s wrapped around her pillow, and thrown over her – rather haphazardly – is a flannel shirt, unbuttoned to cover her legs which are curled up to her chest. El stretches them to the floor, and slowly turns to face the front. Groggily, she squints, and fully opens her eyes to recognize the flannel shirt as being Mike’s green one (her favorite). With a quick turn of her head, she’s looking right at him – guilty look on his face and all.

 

“ _Mike?_ ”

 

“Hi, El! Good morning,” he says.

 

“What’s – “

 

“I’m going to explain everything, but you have to promise me something first,” Mike cuts her off, his voice doing that shaky thing that it does when he gets nervous. _What is wrong with him? What are we doing in the car?_ “Just promise you won’t be mad at me.”

 

El shifts to face him, putting her pillow in her lap, still squinting at him. After a second of thought, she realizes that there’s a large chance that her hair looks like a complete and total mess. Tying it up in a bun with the blue hair tie on her wrist, El watches as Mike’s eyes are trained on the road ahead of him.

 

“Why would I be mad at you?” she asks. He swallows.

 

“I-I don’t know, I just don’t think you’re really going to like what I have to tell you and I just wanted to tell you beforehand that it is not my fault.”

 

El’s brow furrows.

 

“Where are we? Why are we in the car?”

 

Completely ignoring her questions, Mike continues on rambling at who’s to blame for why she woke up in the car – something she doesn’t really care about right now, if she’s being honest. She just wants to know two things – why and where. That simple.

 

“And it isn’t your fault either! It’s no one’s fault!” Mike rambles. “Well, it’s someone’s –“

 

“Mike,” El cuts him off, impatient. “Just tell me.”

 

“Just promise.”

 

“I promise I won’t be mad at you.”

 

And with one more shaky breath, he tells her everything.

 

\---------

El doesn’t know what pisses her off more – the fact that she doesn’t know what to say, or the fact that Mike doesn’t seem to either.

 

Actually, scratch all that. She knows what pisses her off the most – it’s that she isn’t allowed to be pissed at Mike because she already promised him she wouldn’t be.

 

She sits now, legs and arms crossed, staring out the window at the little houses and buildings they’re passing – no, _flying_ by. The highway is kind of busy, and she watches as a dark blue BMW speeds past them on the right, and cuts into their lane. Mike, tapping the breaks in response, murmurs a curse under his breath. El’s eyes flit to him, breaking her cold expression to favor the slightest bit of concern for the first time in the past half hour.

 

He’d been talking the whole time, if you could call his incessant rambling talking. She couldn’t even find an emotion to fixate on, couldn’t decide which one to show first. She was afraid, angry, sad, confused, and downright perplexed. Perplexed that Mike – the person sitting next to her that she felt like she had known her entire life – had somehow been talked into this little _stunt_. This stupid attempt to shoo her away from whatever “danger” lurked in the shadows of their quiet little hometown.

 

At the thought, she rolled her eyes (for the third or fourth time), and huffed.

 

“El, please, seriously. This isn’t my fault.”

 

_Of course it isn’t_ , she thought to herself, keeping her gaze trained on the concrete wall on the side of the interstate highway. _It’s mine. Mine, and…_

 

“Whose fault do _you_ think it is?” she said, immediately regretting her cold tone.

 

“I’m… not sure.” Mike said, keeping his eyes focused on the road. “I was hoping you had some idea?”

 

“Nope,” El responded.

 

“Well… whatever it is… it’s not going to get us while we’re a moving target! So let’s just –“

 

As bad as she felt about it, Mike’s voice faded into the background as she took her first good look out the front windshield. Up ahead was a cityscape, the picture wavering in the early morning heat. El squinted, and just as Mike was about to start his speech about how she was going to “get to finally see the country” again, she cut him off.

 

“Mike.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Where are we?”

 

Her mouth was going just a little bit dry, and she swallowed, waiting for him to answer her.

 

“We’re a little south of Chicago. I think just 20 more minutes, maybe? I’m not sure. I haven’t been using a map since you’ve been asleep all morning, just road signs.”

 

Frozen, El tried not to move a muscle – to give any sign that she drastically opposed. She felt suddenly like they were going too fast. _Way_ too fast in the wrong direction. But…

 

Her mind brought her back to another time when she was frozen, just like this. Her mind was taking longer than she wanted it to, trying hard to think of what she wanted to say. She wanted to tell him, she wanted to scream about it. She felt it bubbling sometimes, just underneath the surface, threatening to spill over if she didn’t…

 

_“I –“_

 

_“You what, El?”_

 

_“I don’t know. I just. I –“_

 

_It was a cold November day, the sun shining through the cracks in the windows, dust starting to loosen off of the sheets of paper all over the walls and stir throughout the house. It was quiet, because everyone around them was asleep._ You have to tell someone, _she thought._ Who better than him?

 

_Mike sat beside her in yesterday’s clothes, his eyes dark and bloodshot from the lack of sleep. They had been whispering, leaning up against the couch and trying not to wake up a snoring Dustin, who was passed out behind them with his hat draped over his head. The others were spread out, around them, lost in unconsciousness. They had all been waiting for Will to emerge from his room, and had given in to exhaustion after the darkest of nights._

 

_“It’s okay,” Mike said, stirring El out of her thinking spell. “You don’t have to tell me.”_

 

_He had asked her where she’d been, what she’d been up to, where she got the clothes she came home in. When he did, it came flooding back to her. She saw those kids. She heard Kali’s gun smashing through the back window. She felt her heart race in her chest the way it had when she ran from the police, into the darkest alleyway that she thought she might never come out of. In all her excitement seeing her friends again, she hadn’t anticipated how much she would dread these questions._

 

_She didn’t have to tell him. He just said so. But, she wanted to – oh, how she wanted to. She just didn’t know how. She didn’t know how to describe it, didn’t know where to start. Most of all, she didn’t want to scare him. Not anymore than she already had._

 

_“Okay,” she said, in more of a breath than a whisper, and she moved to drop the weight of her head to his shoulder. Mike did the same, his head on top of hers._

 

_“I’m just happy you’re back home.”_

 

She had learned how to do so much in the time that had passed between then and now. Telling Mike things, things that she feared would scare him away from her, was not one of them.

 

“Mike, I don’t think we should go this way.”

 

“What? Why? My mom talks about Chicago all the time, she says it’s a really cool city – I’ve only been here once when I was ten for a baseball game, and it was –“

 

“It’s a big city, isn’t it?” El said, cringing internally for her bad acting, and praying Mike would buy it.

 

“Yeah, it’s a huge city! You’re gonna –“

 

“I feel like they’re here.”

 

“Who’s here?”

 

“The… bad men.”

 

“In Chicago?”

 

“No, but they’re in the cameras, remember?”

 

_The cameras_. The damned cameras. The more people became obsessed with surveillance technology, the more El got a headache every time she went into public. She knew she didn’t have to worry that much as she got older, but Hopper had taught her to _look for the cameras_ because the _bad men might be inside_. She learned to spot them early and duck her face out of view – she did it so often that it became a force of habit, every time she went to the mall, filled the car up with gas, went out to eat. The damned cameras.

 

“You really think they’re going to watch you through the cameras? All the way up here?”

 

“We can’t take any chances, right?” El said. “Wouldn’t we be safer in a place that wasn’t so… well known?”

 

Mike took a second to think, his brow furrowing and his thumbs tapping on the steering wheel.

 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he responded, a little let down. “I wanted you to see Chicago, see a real city, you know? The skyline is really pretty at night.”

 

“I’ve seen a real city.”

 

“Indianapolis doesn’t count.”

 

El laughed, easing out of her panic. “Whatever you say.”

 

On the inside, she breathed a massive sigh of relief. It wasn’t that she thought that Kali and her gang were waiting anxiously in the gallows of Chicago to reach out and grab them, but she felt that she couldn’t go back there. It was too big, too intimidating. She had taken refuge in the small size of Hawkins for the past five years. There was some comfort to the fact that there was always somewhere to hide. On top of all that, the irrational part of her brain had her convinced that a sketch artist rendering of the scary little girl to tried to kill some innocent (or, rather, _relatively_ innocent) man was posted on every telephone pole. **WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE.** The minute she stepped back into the city, she’d trigger some alarm. They’d be caught, or worse, _killed_. And Mike would know – he would know everything.

 

And the worst part of all that, he would know that she lied. He would know that she could be violent. That she could hurt people. That she had hurt people. He would know to be scared of her, and he would walk on eggshells to make sure he never set her off.

 

Luckily for El, he didn’t suspect a thing.

 

“Well, if we aren’t going to Chicago, why don’t you help me out with the map?” Mike said, pulling a thick, folded up map from the side console.

 

Upon unwrapping the mess of folded paper, El finally found Chicago.

 

“Let’s just… stay on Highway 90,” El said, squinting to make sure she got the number right. “That will take us past Chicago.”

 

Mike nodded, and shifted lanes. They were drawing up on downtown Chicago now, and it looked just how El remembered, like more people in one place than El could ever imagine. There was a thin layer of smog that covered the tops of the skyscrapers, and she marveled at them – for the second time – as they sped past. She was happy they were going fast, despite usually getting on to Mike for having a lead foot. The quicker it would be over, the better.

 

“Hey,” El said after a minute of silence. “Are you hungry?”

 

“Starving,” Mike said. “I’ve been up since, like, 3:00 AM.”

 

“Can we get something to eat?” El asked. It was weird, like she was asking him to just take her through the drive-thru at home. At least, it felt that way.

 

“Of course, El, what do you want?”

 

She didn’t even need to answer.

 

After a quick 30-minute detour in the suburbs north of Chicago, El was stabbing what was left of a soggy, syrup-drenched waffle with her fork at the first Waffle House Mike could find.

 

“It’s still not the same,” El said between bites.

 

“I know, you’ve told me,” he laughed, and for the second time El almost forgot where they were. But, she remembered, alright… they had plans tonight! Plans she was actually looking forward to, dammit.

 

With the crazy mess of graduation, and the endless possibility of summer stretched out in front of them, El had remembered about a week ago that she and Mike hadn’t gone on an actual _date_ in about two months.

 

It wasn’t any cause for alarm, they had both just been busy planning the next phase of their lives while trying their hardest to avoid talking about the big picture. Mike had to babysit his sister literally every day in the summer, and as much as El loved her, she still wanted some alone time with her boyfriend – and what normal person didn’t want that?

 

So, after she brought it up to him, he made sure to tell Mrs. Wheeler that he was busy on the night of the 13th, because he was going to take his girlfriend out to dinner. El had even bought a new dress, and she had been _oh_ so excited to wear it, too. It was pretty, and long, and it had flowers on it. Was it packed in the bag Hopper threw together without her permission? _Probably not_.

 

The clock on the Waffle House wall said 8:46 AM, and El thought about how she would like to be waking up about right now. Read a couple chapters of her book (Her _book_! Did Hopper pack her book? If he didn’t pack her damn book…), wander downstairs for breakfast, watch some TV, take a bath, blow dry her hair, and take her time getting ready to go out to dinner. But _no_.

 

She just felt herself get mad all over again, staring at the clock and stabbing the plate with her fork a little louder than usual.

 

“I know this sucks,” Mike said, still looking down at his cleaned plate and reading her mind like usual. “I really wanted to take you out to dinner tonight. I had a whole plan and everything.”

 

El looked up at him then, knowing full well that the anger was still showing through just a little.

 

“Where were we gonna go?”

 

“I was thinking Fred’s. The one a little ways out of town? They have good steaks and stuff.”

 

“Oh, now I’m really mad,” El teased, hitting him on the shoulder. “I want a fancy steak dinner.”

 

“You _just_ ate breakfast!”

 

“So?”

 

Oh, how absolutely _frustrating_ it is to be unable to stay mad at Mike for long.

 

“Hey, here’s an idea…” Mike started, putting his fork down, and trying to pull El’s gaze away from the leftover syrup on her plate. “Why don’t we think of this like a vacation.”

 

She looked up at him again, as he put on his best smile, trying to look every bit as unphased by this morning’s events as possible. El could tell he was tired, his poor eyes were bloodshot, and he downed at least four cups of coffee since they sat down. _Maybe I should drive for a while_ , El thought.

 

“A vacation?”

 

“Yeah, like, instead of me taking you to dinner tonight, we’re just going on a vacation.”

 

“Don’t you take vacations with your family?” El asked.

 

She and Hopper never went on any vacations in the early days. With Will’s family included, they sometimes went up to the lake for the day. Mike’s family was the one who always went on the big vacations – always taking a week out of the year to head off to some beach or some city to spend time together, although Mike was always pouty about it and would call her every night from the nearest pay phone. Vacations were something _normal_ families did.

 

“Well, yeah, but you can take them with anyone.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“So, we’re going on a vacation, starting today. Starting right now.” Mike said. He slid his hand across the table to meet hers, still sticky with syrup. “Just you and me.”

 

As much as she hated herself for it, El kind of liked the sound of that.

 

\--------

 

After being insistent in the parking lot, El was the one sitting behind the wheel this time. It made her feel just a teensy bit better about the whole thing. Being in control of something. The radio hummed quietly out of the speakers, crackling the further they moved away from the city, and into the expanse of nothingness ahead of them.

 

El chose the route that pointed to Rockford, Illinois just on a hunch. It just felt like a good idea, and she didn’t want to wake Mike up to ask him how he felt about Rockford. After talking big about being the navigator and driving them through all the National Parks in Wisconsin because that’s where his cousins lived, Mike put El’s pink pillow in between his head and the middle console and completely passed out.

 

She knew he was exhausted – she still didn’t know why Hopper had insisted he hit the road so early this morning. She tried thinking about him fighting sleep while driving down some dark, deserted road in the wee hours of the morning and she yawned. They were on a particularly straight path up Highway 90 now with barely any traffic, and a few clouds masking the sun and making it easy for El to see. Some Aerosmith song turned on, the radio signal getting weaker and weaker. Sparing a quick glance at the radio dial, she changed it to the nearest strong signal – some old bluegrass station – and just let it go. She couldn’t stand the static.

 

Mike shifted a little, and without thinking El moved her left hand to the center of the steering wheel, and her right hand to move her fingers through his messy hair while he slept on.

 

It was her first chance since waking up this morning to actually _think._ About how _stupid_ this whole thing was. She knew how reluctant she was to face her demons internally, but if the opportunity arose in real life, she would absolutely _relish_ in the moment to rid the risk from her friends’ lives once and for all. Just like she had several years ago.

 

It had been a good feeling then, coming home to them and feeling everything slowly turn to normal. For everyone else, things were just turning _back_ to normal. But for her, she got her first taste of it – the thing she had been craving for so long. She wanted to go to normal school and see her normal friends and play normal games and watch normal movies. One after another, she passed those milestones. Something lingered, though… this feeling that would break through all the _normal_ and visit her in the middle of the night when all of her normal friends were fast asleep.

 

_“He is alive.”_

 

_“Do not lie to us, Ray.”_

 

_“I’m not lying. He trusted me. I’ll take you to him.”_

 

It hurt. It stung. At her lowest, she would sit up in the middle of the night and try to find _him_ … sinking into the depths of her mind and searching. Just as she felt like if she turned to look over her shoulder he would be there, she would panic – opening her eyes, breathing in sharp, and reaching for a tissue on the night stand to wipe the proof off her nose.

 

He had to be dead.

 

And even if he wasn’t, he wasn’t here. And if he wasn’t here, he wasn’t her problem.

 

_But he might be someone else’s…_

 

She couldn’t afford to think like that, not when she had people to protect.

 

In Rockford, with Mike still snoozing the rest of the morning away, El took a right towards Madison. Because she thought Madison was a pretty name for a town.

 

She was mad. Mad at Hopper, first of all, for being selfish and sending her away like this. For not thinking about her friends. If Will knew, he was probably worried out of his mind. Max was probably pissed as all hell. Dustin and Lucas were most likely brooding, trying to come up with some stupid plan, even though El really wished they wouldn’t.

 

Joyce – always on edge, always on alert – El couldn’t imagine this little plan working without her on board. Hopper would have never gotten past her with this if she didn’t approve. They were in her car, after all. Joyce was the one who always saw Mike’s good intentions – slapping Hopper on the arm for every snide comment and stern look. El smiled. There was a good chance that Mike coming along was her idea in the first place.

 

El closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath.

 

_Mike’s mom._

 

El knew that the party would probably be brought up to speed with whatever was going on. But Mrs. Wheeler was probably stewing by the phone right now, waiting to be fed some bullshit line about how her son ran away. Worried to death. She’d probably break out the wine bottle, and with that, El’s mind drifted to Holly. _Who’s going to take care of Holly with Mrs. Wheeler all upset?_ El thought. _Not his dad, that’s for sure._

 

It was all so reckless… this whole entire mess of a thing. And she knew, she _knew_ , she was supposed to hate every bit of it.

 

But she didn’t.

 

Her fingers moved from threading through Mike’s hair to his cheek, her thumb moving back and forth.

 

Earlier, Mike told her to think of this like a vacation. With just the two of them. It made El smile that he knew exactly how to make her forget why she was mad or scared in the first place.

 

\---------

 

After an hour or so, Mike stirred out of sleep, his hair pointing every which way. He mumbled something about screwing up his sleep schedule if he didn’t wake himself up, so El decided to find a drive thru and get them some lunch since it was nearing midday anyway.

 

After a pit stop and a quick refill of the gas tank, Mike insisted he drive again since it would keep him awake, and El didn’t object once she found out that _YES, Hopper had packed her book, right on top of all the clothes in her bag._

 

And so, she read, let her mind escape to some nonexistent place. She helped Mike with the map sometimes, and listen to him talk. They listen to music. _Peace of Mind_ by Boston was playing, and El rolled down the window to feel the wind against her hand – and she almost had just that, peace of mind. Not quite, but she sure was close.

 

They had been in Minnesota for some time now, nearing hour 7 since El woke up in Chicago. As she turned a page, she heard the first few raindrops of a storm shower patter on the windshield and looked up, concerned. _When had the clouds gotten so dark?_

 

“Looks like rain…” Mike said, reaching to turn on the windshield wipers as the drops began to speed up in intensity – falling hard, fast, and loud to match their speed on the highway.

 

Rain used to make El uneasy, but she had grown to be comforted by it. It was storms she hated – the unpredictability of the booming thunder always made her jump and she could feel the electricity of the lightning in her fingertips in a way that made her anxious. Mike knew this, and by the way he tensed in the driver’s seat and slowed his speed a little, El knew he was praying they wouldn’t see any flashes of light.

 

The rain, on the other hand, was soothing and smooth on the roof. As long as she was wrapped up in dry clothes and inside, she didn’t mind the rain…

 

…until it started unleashing hell on their windshield so hard that she could barely see the road ahead of them. Mike slowed down even further, turning the car’s headlights on and the wipers up faster.

 

“Just going to take it easy here as this shower passes by…”

 

El looked nervously out the window, hoping for a sign she could point to that would lead them down a road to a nice, well-lit place to stop for a second. Just as she saw a sign that they had passed into South Dakota, she saw the unmistakable flash of lightning. She braced herself, and sure enough, the thunder shook through the car and she jumped, squeezing her eyes shut tight.

 

“Okay,” Mike said, changing over into the right lane, “Why don’t we stop for tonight… Where are we anyways?”

 

“South Dakota,” El said, trying to steady her shaky voice.

 

“South Dakota? _Shit_.”

 

“What?”

 

“It’s just… I always thought South Dakota was far away.”

 

“Well, it is,” El said. “We’ve been driving all day, it only makes sense that we’re far away from home.”

 

The weight of her words wasn’t lost on him, but he just kept driving toward the next exit, where he veered off toward the nearest motel.

 

“How does Brandon, South Dakota sound, El?”

 

Another boom of thunder interrupted them, but it wasn’t like they had much of a choice anyway.

 

The tires of the car crunched across the wet gravel as Mike pulled into the Super 8 parking lot.

 

“Do you wanna wait here or come in with me?” he asked, pulling the hood on his zip-up hoodie over his head to shield him from the rain.

 

“I’ll go in with you.”

 

The vacancy sign buzzed in the window as Mike swung the door open and ushered El in out of the cold summer rain. It was chillier up here in South Dakota, reminding El all over again how far they were from home.

 

Behind a tall counter and stacks upon stacks of files and papers (El couldn’t imagine what they’d be for), sat a teen-aged boy – not that much younger than them – flipping through a comic book and chewing a piece of bubble gum. There was a ribbon with jingle bells on the door handle, but the kid didn’t even look up at them when they walked in the office.

 

Mike cleared his throat to get the kids’ attention.

 

“We’re cash only,” the kid mumbled. “You got cash?”

 

“Yes, I have cash,” Mike said, annoyed. “How much is it?”

 

“15 for a single, 20 for a double.”

 

After a few seconds of Mike fishing around in the envelope he oh-so-covertly hid in the pocket of his jeans, he pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and slid it over the counter.

 

“A double’s fine.”

 

As much as she tried to stop it, El could feel her face scrunch up in pure and utter confusion.

 

_A double room?_

 

The kid took the bill off the counter, looking from El’s dumbfounded expression to Mike’s oblivious one. He got out of his chair with a sigh, and stepped to the wall of keys behind him and plucked one from the side marked “Doubles.”

 

“Sure, whatever, man.”

 

Without another word, Mike opened the door, and stepped back outside into the rain. El followed him, and shut the door behind them.

 

When they came to the awning in front of the car, Mike handed El the keys to the room – 218 – and told her to go ahead. He would bring their stuff up from the car.

 

“Won’t you get soaked?”

 

“It’s just a little rain, El,” he said. And he was right.

 

El jogged up the steps to the second floor and put the key in the lock for 218. The door creaked open, and El had to admit she was expecting a lot worse.

 

It was a double room alright, with one nightstand, a lamp, and one chair. El moved to the window and drew the curtains shut – she figured that would be Mike’s first move upon coming in and she wanted to beat him to it. With a quick flick of her head, the lamp on the nightstand popped on, and El plopped down on the bed closest to the window. She laid back, put her palms over her eyes, and took a deep breath.

 

_Why on earth did Mike get them a double room?_

 

As if on cue, Mike shouldered his way through the door, carrying their duffle bags over his shoulder. He unzipped his hoodie to reveal her pillow, stuffed under for safe keeping. She laughed.

 

“I didn’t want it to get wet.”

 

“Thank you,” she said. “I could have helped with the bags.”

 

“It’s no big deal!”

 

He dropped hers on the bed next to her, and tossed his on the bed closest to the bathroom.

 

“No TV, huh?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“That sucks.”

 

After a few beats of silence, El massaging her temples, and Mike fiddling with something in his duffle bag, he spoke again.

 

“Um, El.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I… I have to take a shower.”

 

El sat up and turned to face him.

 

“Okay?”

 

“Well, I was just saying,” he said. “Are you taking a shower?”

 

“Can I just take one after you?”

 

“Well, yeah, that’s what I’m asking… do you want to go first?”

 

El tried her hardest to stifle the laugh that was bubbling up – he was so adorably nervous about everything, it seemed. He fidgeted with the long string on his hoodie and pretended to look enthralled with the pattern on the carpet.

 

“Mike, you don’t have to be weird,” El teased. “Go take your shower.”

 

“I’m not being weird, I’m just…” he trailed off. “Okay. I’ll go first.”

 

He dug through his duffle for his what El assumed was his toiletry bag, and sauntered off to the bathroom. She heard the water turn on, and in under a second, Mike bolted back out, still fully clothed, and grabbed the entire bag from off of his bed.

 

“Actually, I’m just going to take this whole thing.”

 

The door to the bathroom shut El laughed to herself. What a dork.

 

She spent the time Mike was using in the shower to go through the things that were packed in her bag, since she hadn’t actually packed it herself. Inside were a couple pairs of pretty much everything she owned – a couple of t shirts, a couple of crew necks, a couple of pairs of jeans and a couple of shorts. She dug for a pair of pajamas, and her hand landed on her absolute favorite t-shirt. It was an old one of Mike’s that she found in a donation pile a couple years ago, and she thought it was cute because it was from 9th grade Math Camp and El couldn’t think of anything more adorable that Mike at Math Camp.

 

Hopper probably packed it for her because he knew it was her favorite shirt to sleep in. With a faint smile on her face, she pulled it out, and noticed a piece of paper sticking out of the front pocket.

 

Scrawled on it in unmistakable handwriting was the message: “Please be safe, kiddo. Love you. Can’t wait for you to come home soon.”

 

Soon was underlined. _Soon_. Like he had ever understood the meaning of the word soon.

 

She didn’t have enough time to be mad at him, because just when she wanted to scream into her pillow, El heard the water turn off in the bathroom. El gathered up her pajamas, and the bag with her toothbrush, and sat on the edge of her bed waiting for Mike to swap places with her. Maybe when he came out he would be acting a little less weird.

 

As he sauntered out of the bathroom, El met him at the door.

 

“All yours,” he said with a smile, and passed by her into the room without another word.

 

_Okay._

 

Upon stepping into the bathroom, El noticed that it wasn’t the nicest thing she’d seen, but it also wasn’t the worst. Oh, yes. She had been through a lot worse. After inspecting a few weird stains, and ensuring that they weren’t deadly poison or blood, El turned on the shower and gingerly stepped in.

 

_At least the water pressure is okay_. As soon as she stepped under the steam and got her hair wet, she remembered that she didn’t have her shampoo – _shit_. There wasn’t any in her bag. Looking over her shoulder at the back corner, El’s eyes landed on a bottle of Mikes shampoo. She always loved the smell of his shampoo for some reason, every time she was near him she could smell it. When she would younger it would make her heart race with excitement. Now it was just comforting, and it smelled like home. El thought about asking first, but she decided there was no way he would mind.

 

After her shower, El tied her hair up in a towel and slid her pajamas on. She reached for her toothbrush, and remembered that Mike probably needed to get in and brush his, too. She creaked the door open with a flick of her head while she turned off the faucet and started to brush her teeth.

 

“It’s open,” she called to Mike, with a mouth full of toothpaste.

“What’s that?” Mike said, getting up and coming to the door to meet her.

 

“I said the doors open,” El replied. “If you need to brush your teeth.”

 

“I already did,” he said, trying to hide the laugh that was coming through the grin on his face.

 

“Why are you laughing?”

 

“I’m not laughing.”

 

“Yes, you are.”

 

“You’re just cute, that’s all,” Mike said.

 

“Why am I cute? I’m just brushing my teeth,” El said, spitting into the sink.

 

“Well,” he started, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms across his chest. “You have your hair tied up in a towel in that way that moms do.”

 

El rolled her eyes.

 

“And, I’m pretty sure you’re wearing the math camp t-shirt you stole from me.”

 

“I did not steal it! It was in the donation pile,” El said, walking past him back into the room. She went to grab her hair brush from her bag and let her hair out of the towel.

 

“That’s not what I remember.”

 

“Well, do you want it back?”

 

El grabbed her bag and set it down in the space between the beds, and pulled the sheets back to get in, but something stopped her.

 

“No, I’m happy you have it.”

 

She felt Mike’s hands on her shoulders, and he turned her around to face him.

 

“Why?”

 

“I dunno,” Mike said, as he tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s just cute.”

 

She pulled him to her then, not realizing until that moment how badly she needed to be held by someone. By him. He was so much taller than her now, and his chin came to rest on the top of her head as she buried her face into his white cotton t-shirt. It was so calming, so real, so like home.

 

“You used my shampoo.”

 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t have any…”

 

“It’s okay, I was just noticing,” he said.

 

_I love him_ , she thought.

 

In her mind, El had a little box of wishes – things that she wanted to do in her life. Things she wanted to see and feel and be a part of. Every so often, she thought about the things in her box of wishes, and they made her incredibly giddy about the opportunities she had… like seeing California with Max, or going to school so she could get a job that would _help people_ instead of hurting them.

 

With those, El _knew_ she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Mike somehow. She knew it. She felt it moments like these, where words escaped her completely and she was enamored by him. It never went away, it just hit her in waves – reminding her how lucky she was in the midst of her horrible circumstances. They never spoke about it, but she wanted so much for him to be thinking the same thing at this very moment.

 

“I’m sorry I kidnapped you today.”

 

El laughed.

 

“It’s okay, I forgive you,” she said, looking up at him. He smiled at her, in that way she adored.

 

“You really forgive me?”

 

“I really forgive you.”

 

He leaned town to kiss her then – the first time all day, and El felt herself slip back to normalcy. It was like she was back at home, Mike walking her up to the front porch of the house and pulling her back to him when she tried to go inside. The small, musty motel room faded away completely as if it had been a bad dream.

 

If they had gone out tonight like they had planned, she would be crawling into her bed, missing him already. But, she would be completely overwhelmed with how much she loved him in the same way she was right now.

 

He moved his hand to cup her face, and she pulled away reluctantly, feeling the room and the circumstance bleed back into her existence. Despite the background, he was still there, still looking at her with that dopey smile on his face. That smile she loved so much.

 

“I love you,” he said, reading her mind.

 

“I love you too.”

 

“Let’s get some sleep, okay?” He said. El nodded. “We gotta keep driving tomorrow.”

 

El broke out of their embrace, and moved to get into her bed and Mike did the same, trying to fluff up the flat pillow he’d been given. She was dreading it, driving even farther away from home.

 

“We do?”

 

He rolled to face her, and replied, “Well yeah. That’s what Hop said we should do.”

 

He listened and looked for her response, but she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. As much as she wanted to explore the big world around her and spend time with the person she loved so much – she didn’t want to do it like this. She could only pretend to be a lighthearted teenager for so long until the shell would crack and she would be back to the scarred, broken person she once was _._ And no one was more terrified of that version of herself than El.

 

It was then, watching him get settled in his bed, that she added _freedom_ to her box of wishes. She wanted to be free from this – from them, from her past self. Really, _really_ free. And she wanted him to be free, too. She wanted it more than almost everything else. Almost.

 

“So, um, that’s what I think we should do.”

 

“Okay, Mike,” she said, swallowing the fear in her tone. _Don’t cry. You’re only going to freak him out if you cry._

 

Instead, she motionlessly flicked the lamp off, sending their room into darkness. The light outside of the room did it’s best to peek through the curtained window, so El could still see him.

 

“Sometimes I forget you can do that.”

 

“ _Sure_ you do.” El replied, trying to hide any semblance of sadness with teasing. She hoped it was working.

 

“El?” he asked, timid.

 

_It’s not working._

 

“Hmm?”

 

“You know, you can tell me anything, right?”

 

She did. She _did_ know that.

 

“I know.”

 

She wasn’t lying then, but it still stung. Just because she could, didn’t mean that she _should_. He wasn’t ready – she wasn’t sure he would ever be ready. She knew that keeping things from Mike was technically lying to him – and in Dustin’s prompt reciting of the Rules of Law, punishable by banishment from the party – but in her mind, she had learned that sometimes you have to lie to the people you love if it means you can protect them.

 

“Goodnight, El.”

 

And El knew, if there was some grand design, it was that she was placed precisely where she was so that she could protect her friends. Could protect him. _That_ was above all else in her little box of wishes.

 

“Goodnight, Mike.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!!!! 
> 
> If you're curious, the chapter title comes from Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce... and I love subtly working the songs I'm listening to into what I'm writing if you're into playlists and that sort of thing. 
> 
> See you soon for round three!!


	3. The Second Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike and El continue their journey on the run as they slowly but surely come to the realization that this ‘vacation’ isn’t exactly what they thought it would be. They wait anxiously for Hopper’s first report, both secretly hoping that he’ll send the all clear that lets them make their way back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the kind words!! It seriously means the world, and you're encouraging me (and hopefully all the other tremendously talented writers here...) to be the best story teller I can. It's impossible without you; keep inspiring your favorite creators to create!! 
> 
> Please enjoy part 3!!

_June 14th, 1989 – 9:35 AM_

_Brandon, South Dakota_

 

Taking a deep breath of the stale air around him, Mike comes to after his first full night of sleep in what feels like _weeks_ , except it’s only been a day.

 

_Holy fuck, it’s only been a day._

 

He blinks, and turns his head from one side to the other, waiting for his neck to pop. The pillow the motel had graciously given him was nothing less than a sack of Legos, and he felt like he must have been absolutely exhausted to fall asleep that early, on that uncomfortable of a pillow, and still have slept all the way through the night.

 

He got up to pee. He was trying to be as quiet as he could to avoid waking El, looking for her in her bed as he passed. She was curled up in the thin sheets, facing the window, looking absolutely lost to the world.

 

The morning light was shining through the cracks in the curtains, and he thought it might be time that they hit the road again. One glance at his watch, and he _knew_ it was time. Dammit. _We gotta go, and soon._

 

It probably wasn’t as urgent as Mike felt it was, but he was freaked out. So freaked out, he had tried his absolute hardest to hide it from El all day yesterday because he didn’t want her to worry about him. He didn’t want her to worry at all. So maybe, if he acted like he was actually enjoying this whole thing ( _a ‘vacation’, if you will_ ), she would too.

 

That way, she wouldn’t notice that he checked over his shoulder every five minutes for that menacing white-haired man in a suit that he saw in his nightmares. No matter the monster, no matter the scenario in front of him, Mike had always been haunted by the mere appearance Dr. Brenner. He made Mike so angry that it _terrified_ him. He hoped, for the bastard’s sake, he was dead or on some far away island, because when Mike got ahold of him…

 

_Shut up_. Mike thought, stopping himself. _You aren’t going to kill anybody, calm down._

 

But he was still freaked out. He felt like, if they didn’t get a move on _right this very second_ that the bad men and scary doctors were hot on their tails with guns and ropes and sleepy medicine in syringes to make sure El would never escape and he would never be seen or heard from again.

 

All that faded away on his way back from the bathroom, when he saw that El had shifted in her sleep to face his side of the room. Her face was all smushed up in her pillow, and her mouth was open just slightly. She looked so calm, like she didn’t know how stressed Mike was at the moment. He thanked his lucky stars that she didn’t have a nightmare last night, thankful that she was getting some much-needed rest. He was always there when she called him in the middle of the night, but he had a sneaky suspicion that she didn’t ask him for help as often as she needed it.

 

He stood above her, ready to gently wake her up so they could keep going, but he stopped himself before he could gently shake her shoulder.

 

_No one is following us, at least not closely enough to be all the way out here by now._

 

So, he just got back in bed, deciding to let her wake up on her own.

 

He was so lucky to know so much about her – he knew how strong willed and powerful she was, how stubborn and determined she could be. He knew what made her laugh, he knew what made her nervous. He knew what made her happy and what made her want to hide. Even though he felt like he had known her for as long as he’d been breathing, he was still completely in awe by the simple things she did. For example, how adorable of a sleeper she was.

 

He let himself catch up to everything a little. Reminding himself what he was really so nervous about, and simultaneously why all of his worrying was unnecessary. If El was here with him, they were going to be okay. She was unbelievable, indestructible, and fierce. They would be just fine. _He knew it_.

 

El breathed what sounded like a contented sigh in her sleep. If he was being honest, he absolutely _loved_ it that she stole his Math Camp shirt from him a couple of years ago. He never once questioned where it went, because he figured she had snatched it from his room. It was cute. Perfectly cute. What normal girlfriends did with their normal boyfriend’s t-shirts.

 

He wanted to reach out and touch her, but she was too far away.

 

He didn’t know how he was going to make it through college without living in the same town. He was torn – torn between being with her, and having the “true college experience” his family was always on him about. Even though (to his absolute disdain) his dad rambled on about “branching out” and “meeting new people” every chance he got, Mike knew he was at least a little bit right. New experiences in a new town were a good thing, but it didn’t mean any of those new experiences needed to replace El. Or any of the rest of his friends, for that matter.

 

He loved her. Much more than he could have ever imagined loving someone. It was different… that was the only way he could describe it. Different, in the way he was just _sure_. He was sure about everything she said, sure about everything she did, sure about everything she was. When he looked at her (even right now, as she was stirring out of sleep and blinking into the morning), he didn’t have a single doubt in his mind.

 

“ _Oh my God…”_ she said, yawning. “Mike, how are you already awake?”

 

“It’s almost 10,” he replied, reaching to flip the lamp switch on. She winced at the sudden brightness. “Sorry.”

 

“Did you sleep okay?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

 

“I did, what about you?”

 

“Fine,” she replied. “Just fine.”

 

He was sitting now, waiting for her to start making her way out of bed, but she wasn’t. She was letting her eyes drift open and closed, fighting the idea of being awake. It would make him antsy if he wasn’t totally lost in watching her wake up.

 

“Why are you just sitting there staring at me?” she asked.

 

“Because I love you.”

 

“That’s weird,” El said, yawning one more time before opening her eyes for good this time. “But _I guess_ it’s okay.”

 

“Oh, really?”

 

“I _guess_.”

 

Mike smiled, and it broke into laughter as he stood himself up to walk towards the bathroom. Before he could get very far, she rolled her way out of bed and stopped him, standing in his way with her arms crossed. Her hair was a little… _everywhere_ since she slept on it wet, but she hadn’t yet noticed. He was glad, he loved her hair like that.

 

“How long have you been sitting there staring at me because you love me?”

 

“I dunno. Forever, probably.”

 

He leaned down to kiss the top of her forehead and walk on to the bathroom to brush his teeth, but she stayed in his way, pulling him into a hug which he gladly reciprocated. An impenetrable force, she seemed.

 

“Good morning,” she mumbled into his shirt. “I love you too.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Then why are you trying to walk away from me?”

 

“I’m trying to brush my teeth so my breath doesn’t stink, is that okay with you?”

 

She let go of him then, and followed him to the sink in the bathroom. He grabbed his toothbrush from the holder, and she did the same. In seconds, they were both brushing their teeth, taking turns spitting into the sink and trading looks in the mirror. She giggled at him, and he laughed at her – for what, neither of them seemed exactly sure.

 

Wiping the rest of the toothpaste off his mouth with the spare towel on the rack behind them, he turned back around to face El, who was doing the same on the washrag by the sink.

 

“Better?” she asked, mocking him with her facial expression in the mirror. For that, he swept her up all of a sudden, spinning her around and lifting her up so that she was eye level with him, his arms wrapped around her waist. Her feet were dangling about a foot off the floor.

 

“Mike,” she laughed. “Put me down!”

 

But he didn’t. He kissed her instead, and with that her hands moved from his shoulders to his face and she sighed. He did it to cushion what he was about to say, but he forgot all about that for a few seconds while he got a little lost in the way her fingers were playing with his hair. _I’m sorry, El. I’m so so sorry._

 

Just as she was moving her right leg up to lock around his hip, he lowered her back down to the floor and pulled back to see her look back at him – all dazed and confused.

 

“El, we should get back in the car.”

 

She rolled her eyes and threw her head back, exasperated.

 

“Why?” she wined. “Haven’t we driven far enough? Can’t we just stay here?”

 

He could tell she was hoping that the proposition of staying here would tempt him, but he was sure they needed to leave and she frowned.

 

“I think we should keep going. I said so last night.”

 

“I thought you would get over that,” she said, as she grabbed her toothbrush and set off for her bag in the room.

 

“Come on, El, don’t make me the bad guy…” he tapered off, cringing a little at his choice of words and praying she wouldn’t fixate on them.

 

She fished for a set of clothes in her bag. He figured he should do the same.

 

“I just don’t want to sit in the car for an _eternity_ like I did yesterday.”

 

“I get it, I don’t want to either,” he said, thinking hard about a way to make her _not_ completely hate this. She stepped in the bathroom to change, so Mike just stayed put, swapping his pajama pants for jeans and pulling on a fresh t-shirt.

 

“Well, we can try to find something to do every couple of hours, how does that sound?” he called to her through the wall.

 

When she opened the door, she was in a different t-shirt and a pair of shorts with her hair up in a pony tail.

 

“I guess that’s okay,” she said, walking past him to grab her bag and toss it over her shoulder. She turned around, looking over the room one last time to make sure she hadn’t left anything. “Come on,” she said, and nodded him towards the door He took a few steps to follow her before stopping in his tracks.

 

“You go ahead, I’m going to check one more time to make sure we didn’t leave anything.”

 

He reached into his pocket and tossed her the keys. She caught them in her free hand.

 

“Alright… see you in a minute.”

 

When she closed the door behind her, Mike let out a small sigh of relief. _Almost forgot._ He opened the bedside drawer where he had stashed Hopper’s gun last night while she was showering, and made sure the safety was on before he stuffed it in the waistband of his jeans.

 

He figured she didn’t need to know about Hopper giving him a weapon unless something crazy happened – she would only get more concerned with the state of things and want to go back home all the more. Of all the places he could take her, that was the only place they couldn’t go.

 

It turned out that Sioux Falls was just a couple of miles away, so Mike decided it was the perfect place to refill the gas tank and grab them some breakfast at the nearest McDonalds. A couple of quick Egg McMuffins and cups of coffee later, he and El were at the first gas station he could find fueling up the car before they set off to find new scenery.

 

She sat in the passenger seat, with a baseball cap low on her head to avoid any of the stupid cameras that _might_ be at the gas station – though Mike thought that was unnecessary. He didn’t see any cameras anywhere, as if they’d even have that kind of technology up here anyway.

 

As he was watching the gallon ticker move up steadily and tapping on the folded up manila envelope in his back pocket, El got out of the car and came to the back to stand by him.

 

“I’m going to run in and go to the bathroom really quick,” she said.

 

He mouthed to her, “Watch out for the cameras!” which earned him a light slap on the arm before she walked across the parking lot and into the store. A few minutes later she came back out to him, grabbed his hand and begged him to come inside with her. He reluctantly followed her away from the car, praying the door was locked.

 

“El, what are you doing?”

 

“I had an idea… look at these!” She motioned him over to a stand in between the named keychains and the mini license places.

 

They were postcards, with beautiful pictures of _Sioux Falls, South Dakota_ in all its glory – scenic rivers and flowers and rocks and whatever the hell else was out here. El started spinning the stand, and her eyes lit up.

 

“El, you know we aren’t supposed to tell anyone where we are…”

 

She acted like she didn’t hear him, plucking one of the post cards up with the phrase **Greetings from Sioux Falls** in bold, loopy cursive over a rocky waterfall. **Wish You Were Here!**

 

It was kind of dirty – Mike could only guess the postcards had been on the shelves since the 70’s – and El blew the dust off the card.

 

“It’s only 15 cents, Mike.”

 

“ _But we can’t send it to anyone at home_ ,” he whispered.

 

“ _I don’t want to send it_ ,” she whispered back, determined. “I want to keep it. If this is a vacation, I want to treat it like one.”

 

She turned to him with those big, defiant eyes of hers, and Mike knew he couldn’t say no even if he wanted to. And where was the harm, really? As long as she didn’t secretly slip them to Max back at home, he figured it was a pretty good idea.

 

“That would be a cool way to know where we’ve been...”

 

“Like a travel diary!” she finished his thought for him. “I found one of Joyce’s in a box once.”

 

He fished a dollar out of the envelope in his pocket and she went up to the counter to buy it, putting the spare change in the _Take a Penny Leave a Penny_ jar in front of the cash register.

 

Her souvenir in a little brown bag under her arm, El climbed into the passenger seat and waited for Mike to strap himself in. Once he buckled his seatbelt, he looked over to her and she was pulling postcard out, admiring the waterfall on the front. It was a pretty scene, but Mike didn’t have any idea where it was.

 

“We don’t have to tell anyone we never saw the real thing,” she said, smiling at him. He grinned, and leaned in to give her a quick kiss before shifting the car in drive and peeling out of the gas station. She grabbed the map out of the console, and tried to find their position on the tangled mess of roads and highways.

 

“Vacation day number two,” Mike said. “Where are we headed, El?”

 

\---------

 

_June 18th, 1989_

_Bismark, ND_

 

The past few days had whizzed by in a weird slow blur, and El was convinced she knew both of the Dakotas as if she had lived in the two states her entire life. Her and Mike had weaved north and south through forests and plains for the past couple of days, deciding that they didn’t want to head much further from home before hearing what Hopper had to say that Sunday.

 

El had secretly been dreading what there was for Hopper to find in Hawkins. She had been pushing that tiny aspect of their predicament from her mind as often as she could, buying post cards at every stop and writing a few sentences about their day whenever she got a chance. It had been like a vacation so far – no bad men or horrors from their past in sight – except the fact that it was _absolutely boring_ most of the time. El was pretty much reading her book one page at a time just to prolong the inevitability of finishing it in a couple of hours and having nothing else to preoccupy herself with.

 

Mike had been good. They had been driving less and less as the days moved past them, stopping to walk around quaint downtown squares, look in store windows, and eat in little country kitchens to avoid another burger from McDonalds. The places they’d been staying had been alright so far, with no extreme complications to date. One time, El was positive there was a hair that didn’t belong to her in her bed, but she just flung it on to the floor and forced herself not to think about it.

 

Mike was still getting them double rooms, something that El still did not understand.

 

At the time, she just figured the first time must have been a mix of nerves and exhaustion, but the next couple of nights were the same. _I mean, we’re still sleeping two feet from each other in the same room._ El thought, every night, like clockwork. _What’s the difference?_

 

He let her drive sometimes, though, and she loved those few hours of freedom while she let him rest. They had spent so much time talking about everything under the sun, that El couldn’t imagine there was anything else left on earth to talk about.

 

After complaining about her lack of clean clothes, Mike had asked their waitress about the nearest laundromat ( _Laundra Matt? Who the hell is Laundra Matt?_ ) and they had spent a couple hours sharing a pint of chocolate ice cream from the nearby convenience store and doing their laundry in this _seemingly massive_ laundry room. Mike exchanged a few dollars for quarters and they did a few loads, goofing off while they waited. Why anyone would ever want to do their laundry at home in their tiny laundry closet when they could do it in a place like this was completely lost on El.

 

That was probably her favorite night so far, and she still stifled a laugh when she thought about being caught with Mike pushing her around the isles in one of the laundry carts by the old, persnickety attendant woman.

 

_“What are you kids up to? I’ll run you out of my store if you’re messing around with the equipment.”_

 

_“So sorry ma’am,” Mike said, trying his hardest to hide his laughter. El hid behind him, a smile cracking on her face. “We’ll stop. We’ll leave soon, I swear.”_

 

Now they were held up in North Dakota. After dinner that night at a diner outside of Bismarck, Mike pulled them into the adjacent motel, and El carried their bags while he went in to pay for the room. It had been a nice day, the sun had been shining, but there was a looming presence over them. She knew Mike would never _ever_ say it, but he was hoping Hopper would tell her it was alright to come home. She hoped so too, and she had been anxious about it all morning – biting her nails and being fairly silent on the drive. She knew he noticed. He always noticed.

 

Mike passed her the keys – Room 115, and _what do you know?_ El thought. _A double room... At least this one has a TV._ She put her bag down on the sixth bed she’d slept on this week, and they watched reruns of _America’s Funniest Home Videos,_ Mike checking his watch every couple of minutes, until…

 

\---------

 

“Hey, kiddo.”

 

El has grown to hate it here, in the dark expanse of her mind. She always tries her hardest to come back here only when she _needs_ to. Most recently, those needs had only been to find people of interest for Dustin and Lucas after saying “ _Fine, if you’ll shut up_ ,” and seeing what Mike was doing sometimes when she missed him.

 

She hadn’t gone in her mind to look for… _him…_ in about a year. She was too afraid she’d stumble upon something she wasn’t ready to see, or something that would make her lose control and create another… _rift_ in the Earth. She felt like the world was too fragile for her to ever be exploring the full extent of her powers. They did much more hurt than good. She stuck to grabbing things that were out of her reach, being effortlessly coordinated, and doing the occasional party trick for her friends. The black void in her head was no place for her to spend too much time, especially when there were wonderful people in the dimension in front of her that she didn’t want to risk.

 

She was here now, though against her will, and Hopper was in his chair back at home. The lamp was on over his shoulder, the yellow light spilling into the darkness. There was a chilled beer can on the side table next to him. His eyes moved around the room, and El wondered about the rest of the scene… was Joyce waiting in the kitchen trying to look busy? Was Will impatiently listening on the couch?

 

“It’s about 7:30 our time. I don’t know if you’re listening yet, or not, because of the time changes… _I hope he remembered the time changes…_ ”

 

El almost rolled her eyes. He was always so on Mike’s case about being late. She swiftly moved her concentration to the lamp, and the lightbulb flickered a few times, enough to catch his attention. He looked up at it and smiled.

 

“Okay… okay you’re here then.” His voice grew in excitement. El took a step closer and looked in his eyes – they looked impossibly tired, like he hadn’t been getting much sleep. She sighed. She hoped, oh she _hoped_ he wasn’t smoking again. She glanced on the table looking for an empty box of cigarettes but didn’t find one. _Hopefully Will is holding him to his word._

 

“I – we miss you,” he continued, staring straight ahead. El moved a step over, so that she could pretend, just for a second, that he was looking right at her. That he could see her. “I hope you’re not mad at me.”

 

_Ha._ _I’m not mad at you, I’m_ pissed _, you stubborn son of a –_

 

Hopper’s gaze shifted to someone she couldn’t see.

 

“What’s that? Oh. El, blink twice if you’re mad at me.”

 

Without a shred of hesitation, the lamp light blinked two times.

 

Hopper started laughing, likely with whoever else was in the room. It was absolutely agonizing not to know who.

 

“You don’t have to answer that quickly, Jesus,” he said, rubbing his eyes and reaching for the beer beside him. “Your little friend Max is already mad at me enough for the both of you.”

 

_Max._

 

“Speaking of which, she’s fine. Everybody is fine.”

 

Hopper started to tell her what was going on in Hawkins. It was the absolute _talk of the_ _town_ that Ted Wheeler’s son had run off with his girlfriend for “no apparent reason” although most people in town knew it was because Ted probably told him he didn’t approve. Karen was upset – with Ted, mostly, for being so insensitive. She called Hopper every day to see if he had any updates on their kids, and every day Hopper lied and told her he had no idea where they’d run off to or why they’d gone.

 

He said her friends were told everything they needed to know, and they were pissed at him for not letting them tag along. Max was the angriest of all of them, and she had asked _who needed to die_ in order to bring Mike and El back home. Will was a little down, probably because he was faced with _all this_ for the first time in a while, and it was showing. Hopper was worried about him, and El could tell by the way he avoided talking about him altogether.

 

Just as El felt responsible for _everything_ , so did Will. They shared that, and would often argue over it, but El couldn’t understand why he wasn’t scared of her. She was the one who did those things to him. He was the victim, and she knew it. She would say she was sorry, and every time he just threw the I’m sorrys right back at her.

 

_Will, please be okay._

 

What El and Mike wanted to hear, most of all, was when they could come home. It didn’t have to be tomorrow, but they just wanted to know that it would be soon. The uncertainty of everything was weighing on them, and she could tell when she looked in his eyes. He was cracking under the pressure – pretending for so long that he was alright with it all. He was trying to be so strong for her, but she didn’t need it. She just needed to get them both back home somehow.

 

As she waited for Hopper to continue, she could feel Mike’s pulse in his hand that held on to hers. It was grounding her, and she squeezed it to let him know she was alright. He squeezed back. Any news would hopefully be good news. They just wanted to know _something._

 

“But, uh, we don’t have any more leads,” Hopper shifted the subject. “Everything’s gone quiet.”

 

El swallowed.

 

“So just keep moving, kid. And be careful. Please.”

 

_He’s still not going to tell me what he knows, is he?_

 

“Have a good week. Be safe. We love you,” he said, his tone wavering a little as he spoke.

 

El flickered the light one more time, just before she opened her eyes.

 

“Any news?”

 

It was Mike now, and she had almost forgotten how refreshing it was to be _seen_ by someone. That was one of the things she hated so much about being in there – not being seen.

 

“No,” El said, moving her hand to wipe her nose.

 

“Here,” Mike said, handing her the tissue in the hand that wasn’t tightly gripping hers in his lap. “What did he say?”

 

El remained solemn, she didn’t want Mike to know homesick she was. She knew he was too, and having to comfort her through it wouldn’t make him feel any better.

 

“Max is pissed,” El said, with a half-smile and Mike laughed.

 

“Of course, she is! She’s pissed she can’t be in on all the action.”

 

El rolled her eyes.

 

“He says your mom’s okay,” she said, moving on with a faint smile. “And that she’s madder at your dad than at you.”

 

“Shocker…” Mike said, lightening the mood a little. El laughed.

 

“Come on, I’m worried about your mom.”

 

“She’ll be okay once we get back,” he said, reaching to run a hand through his messy hair. “Which, I guess won’t be any time soon?”

 

“No,” she answered. “He didn’t tell me anything. He just said everything had gone silent and that we should keep going.”

 

“Well...” Mike said, and then he abandoned his train of thought and shook his head. “Then, I’m going to take a shower.”

 

As he stood, he put a hand on El’s shoulder and leaned down to kiss her forehead, taking her bloody tissue with him as he walked towards the bathroom.

 

“I’m sorry, El,” he said, turning around to face her from the door. “I wanted to go home too.”

 

She smiled at him in reassurance one more time, but once he closed the door, El flung herself back onto her bed, put a hand over her mouth and let a few tears escape from behind closed eyes as she heard the shower turn on.

 

_I just want everyone to be safe. Is that too much to ask?_

 

It wasn’t the not being home part. They were in a boring part of the country, sure, but El didn’t mind going on daily road trips with Mike. She didn’t mind eating loads of fast food. She didn’t mind getting to see him every night before she went to sleep and every morning when she opened her eyes. She didn’t mind a single bit of that.

 

But the fact that they couldn’t turn around, the fact that they were floating around the northern plains as _fugitives_ running for their lives, the fact that her friends were in stupid _stupid_ danger back at home… it was soiling all of that goodness. She didn’t even know who the hell she was running from… who was looming right over her hometown waiting to snatch her up the second they went back home... who was…

 

Mike drew her out of her thinking spell then, peaking his way through the door, his hair all wet, wrapped up in a towel like he’d forgotten his change of clothes on his bed.

 

“I’m sorry, El, but I have to know. It’s killing me.”

 

“You have to know what?” she asked, sitting up and sniffing away the last of her tears.

 

“He’s dead, right?”

 

“ _What?_ ”

 

“Dr. Brenner is dead, right?”

 

El blinked, and opened her mouth, but before she could speak…

 

“ _Right?”_

 

\---------

 

A few minutes later, with Mike freshly clothed and sitting cross legged on the foot of her bed, El was trying her hardest to think of any possible way out of this.

 

“I mean, he died, right? He died when we were kids.”

 

“Y-yes,” she answered, looking down. _Convincing. Way to go._

 

“How do you know that?”

 

His questions weren’t pressing, just curious. That didn’t mean she could answer him, not in a way that would ease his state of mind. Her heart was racing under her sweatshirt, and she moved a hand up to her chest to try and slow it down.

 

“Because,” Mike went on. She could see the gears turning in his head, connecting the dots. “What if he didn’t die? What if he’s still out there, and that’s who’s back in Hawkins.”

 

El swallowed, and looked down at the piece of lent she was playing with from the bed spread.

 

“He’d dead. I know it.”

 

“How do you –“

 

“ _Why can’t you just trust me_?” she cut him off, a little harsher than she meant to. He took a breath.

 

“Are you scared to go find him? Because –“

 

“I’m _not_ scared. I just don’t need to, I know he’s not there.”

 

He took another breath, looking lost in thought. Much to El’s udder frustration, she knew he wasn’t going to give up on this.

 

“Because, I’ll be here with you. But, I really think you need to do this. To make sure.”

 

Her heart beat buzzed in her ears. _He was right, again_. That was the worst part. He was right and she couldn’t avoid him looking at her in that way… like he would forgive her and love her no matter what she did next. Even if she persisted and kept refusing, he would still kiss her and wish her sweet dreams before he shut his eyes and went to sleep that night. Still, a tiny part of her wanted to do it. For him.

 

_You’ll be able to prove it this time,_ she thought. _This time, when you say that he’s dead, you will know._

 

El turned so that she was facing Mike on the bed, and took his hands in hers.

 

“Don’t let go, okay?”

 

“You’re going to be fine, El,” he said, nodding his head. “I promise.”

 

She closed her eyes, and away she went…

 

The blackness was back surrounding her for the second time that night. The water cold, the feeling eerie – like if she spun around quick enough she would see her greatest fears coming to greet her. But there was nothingness for eternity, just like always.

 

She could still feel Mike’s hands in hers, grounding her from what seemed like an infinity away. She knew he was there with her, his thumbs rubbing the backs of her hands.

 

_Okay,_ El thought. _You’ve been through worse. You can do this. Do it for Mike._

 

She pictured _him_ , cold and domineering, and she felt her breath quicken at the sight – even if it was just her imagination. A lightning-fast rumination of all of her memories of him flashed before her, making her gasp and then squeeze her eyes shut – all to open them all over again to the blackness. This time, she could feel it. She was not alone.

 

She didn’t want to see anything at all. Blackness, like he never even existed.

 

El was very torn in two pieces. She could remember with grotesque clarity reaching out to find Nancy’s friend when she was a kid. What she found was a _corpse_ , not a person. She wanted _him_ to be gone so very badly, but she didn’t want to see him like that. And if he was gone, that’s the way he would be. Rotting away in the Upside Down. Demogorgon food. Like he should be.

 

Holy _shit_. She hadn’t thought about the damned Upside Down in years. She’d been pretending that it didn’t exist, like they’d all made it up as a part of some game. A figment of Mike’s brilliant creativity. It all came flooding back then, every ounce of their past as being something _excruciatingly real_ and El couldn’t take it anymore. The only thing reminding her that she was still a part of the real world were Mike’s hands holding on to hers even tighter than before, and the wetness she could feel streaming down her face.

 

_“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m right here, you can open your eyes if you want to.”_

 

She could hear him somewhere above her, echoing out across the rippling water.

 

_Deep breaths_ , El thought. _Get ready. Do it. One two three._

 

El kept her eyes closed, but spun around, omitting a quiet sob into the blackness. That’s when she swore she heard it – and she knew it wasn’t Mike because he hadn’t called her by that in _years_.

 

“Eleven…”

 

El’s eyes flew open then, but she found Mike kneeling in front of her with his arms out stretched, ready to catch her when she came falling forward. She fell into him, and he held her as tight as he could, stroking her hair with his hands.

 

“Shhhh, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay, you’re back with me, see?”

 

She was aware then that she was sobbing, a pretty red mess dripping out of her nose that she went to wipe on her sleeve. She tried to breath deep and control herself, but it was so _hard_.

 

“Here,” Mike said, reaching again for a tissue and wiping her nose for her this time as she kept crying into his shirt, feeling bad for the mess she was probably making.

 

He just let her go, until her breath was back to normal and she stayed all curled up in his lap with her eyes closed.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry,” he rubbed her back with his free hand. _Why on earth is he so sorry all the time? It’s not like any of this mess is his fault._ “I shouldn’t have asked you to do that.”

 

They stayed that way for a few minutes, as El’s heart beat slowed. She was pressed tightly against his chest, so she could hear his too. Beating in quick rhythm with hers.

 

“Do you want to tell me what you saw?”

 

El made a decision right then and there, and she didn’t regret it. Not one tiny bit. She couldn’t go back there, she couldn’t feel that again. She couldn’t keep letting her mind – her _fearful_ mind – trick her into insanity.

 

She looked up at him, with glassy eyes, and said to Mike with as much certainty as she could muster…

 

“He’s gone.”

 

And that… that was the second lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ????? Dun dun dun. (Sorry). 
> 
> Part 4 is on its way soon, I promise. Let me know what you think <3


	4. Come Tomorrow, Feel No Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After spending so much time out on the road, Mike and El make a new friend who leads them to a new place. 
> 
> Vague. I know. Just roll with me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I didn't mean to take this long to update... work got crazy and the holidays are always a mess and for some reason this was a hard chapter to write. Excuses excuses. But I'd rather do it justice than give you something I'm not that proud of in a rush, you know? Thanks for waiting, and thank you as always for the kind words and kudos. Hope you enjoy! <3

_June 24th, 1989 – 5:38 PM_

_Wolf Lodge, Idaho_

 

Mike loves his girlfriend for loads of reasons.

 

She’s kind and gracious and loving – despite the whole _before_ thing that he doesn’t like to think about. She’s snarky and sarcastic, and not afraid to joke at anyone’s expense – including his. He doesn’t mind as long as he can hear her laugh, it’s his favorite sound.

 

She’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen in so many ways and at so many times. He spent a great deal of his time in high school just waiting for her to find someone else to be kind, gracious, and loving to. She never did. That was yet another thing he loved about her – that she loved him right back.

 

He could think of way way _way_ more things he loved about her, but driving across the state of Montana and into northern Idaho had taught him a brand new one.

 

El’s eyes when she saw the mountains. She absolutely lit up in awe, in wonder, in fascination. It had been a while since he had seen her so baffled by something new.

 

They had taken their time driving towards the Pacific Northwest, Mike making sure to weave north and south so that they could at the very least hit a few national parks. The plains of North Dakota gave way to rolling hills and mountains and incredible forests, and Mike was pretty amazed by them himself. The trees were evergreen and fresh, and the air was so crisp that El would roll down her window to breathe it in, even if she had to pull on a sweatshirt to avoid the chill. The two-lane highways snaked around the hills, and El sat wide eyed with her head resting on her arms leaning out of the open window.

 

“Indiana _sucks_ ,” she said once, in between sips of her Diet Coke and humming along with the radio. “Who on earth would live there when you could see _this_ every day?”

 

Mike laughed to himself. “Ask our parents.”

 

The beautiful landscape seemed to be kind of reviving her, because with each passing day since _he made her do that stupid stupid thing_ the skin under her eyes looked a little lighter and she smiled a little more often. At least he was doing one thing right.

 

Speaking of, he felt horrible about all that. And he couldn’t shake it.

 

El had, of course, forgiven him. She said, during one particularly long drive, that it hadn’t been his fault in the first place. He eventually accepted that, although he knew it wasn’t true.

 

_Why couldn’t I just believe what she had to say when she said it? That’s what love is, right? Trust and honesty?_

 

If he loved her so damn much like he’d been lost in thought about all day, maybe he would have just _shut the hell up_ about needing to be sure about anything. He’d be so selfish it made him sick to his stomach.

 

At least… _at the very least_ they were sure. Whoever was coming for them, it wasn’t _him_.

 

It had been six days since then. There was more of a rhythm to things now, and there were more and more stretches where they sat together in silence.

 

Silence usually made Mike very nervous, but he was growing to find it comforting to sit in silence with her, watching the wind whip her hair around her face in between glances at the road. They drove shorter distances and stayed in places for longer periods of time. El would ask their waitresses about things to do and see, and they would do and see them – looking at waterfalls and parks and hiking trails to get as much of the beautifully crisp fresh air as they could. He was resting easier, and he hoped that meant she was too.

 

“Gotta get gas soon…” Mike mentioned, snapping back into the present, and turning down the song El was humming along to as she tapped her fingers on the console. “Do you want to find a place to eat?”

 

El wordlessly unfolded the map in her lap as she had a thousand times, and pulled out a pen (she’d been keeping track of where they’d been), looking for the nearest city. They had just emerged from driving through the _Coeur d’Alene Forrest_ (as she had so aptly announced a few hours prior), and El traced their path on the map with her finger.

 

“Wow, Mike, we’re almost to Washington.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah, Spuh-cane?”

 

“Spokane…”

 

“Spokane,” El corrected. “It’s just a few miles ahead, I think. We can grab something there, and maybe stop for today?”

 

“Sounds like a solid plan to me,” Mike said, using his right hand to give her knee a reassuring squeeze.

 

Once they passed the border of Idaho and Washington, Mike veered them into _yet another_ diner – this one called The Lucky 7, the neon lights flashing green.

 

_All Welcome. 24 hours a day, Lucky 7 Days a Week._

 

He and El wandered in and found a green booth in the back, where Mike plucked the laminated menu out from in between the ketchup and mustard bottles.

 

This was definitely one of the nicer diners they’d been to. The walls were all black and white checkered tiles, and there was an actual old-fashioned juke box in the corner, flashing a rainbow of colors. There were a few people dispersed across the restaurant – a family of four near the take-out counter, a couple of truck drivers up at the carry-out counter, an older couple tucked away in a corner.

 

“Let’s see… do I want another burger, or do I want…”

 

“Mike,” El cut him off, tapping him on the wrist from across the table. She was sitting forward on her elbows and glancing to her left at the rest of the restaurant’s guests before continuing. His brow furrowed, thinking she was waiting to see the menu, and he tried to pass it to her so they could share. She didn’t even look twice at it, setting it down between them.

 

“How are we doing on money?” she whispered to him.

 

“We’re doing fine, I count it every night,” he said. And he did, without fail. They really _were_ doing fine so far, they’d only blown through about $1,000. Just to be safe, he had started to make sure El brought him the change back when she bought her post cards in the gas stations. They had been driving less too, so less gas to buy.

 

“Maybe we should do two meals a day instead of three…” she thought out loud, tapping her fingers on the table.

 

“El, we don’t need to cut down on food,” he said. “What brought this on?”

 

“I don’t know, I’m just saying, there’s things we could sacrifice. You know, to save up, in case…” she trailed off.

 

“Your dad knows how much money he sent us with and how long it should last,” Mike reminded her. “Surely he’d call us home before then.”

 

El rolled her eyes. Mike figured she was trying her hardest to avoid thinking about having to talk to Hopper tomorrow… or rather to just sit and listen to him. Mike knew she didn’t want to. He had a funny feeling that it would probably just be another round of no news, just like last time. She probably had that same funny feeling. Just because they had settled into a routine, didn’t mean that the routine wasn’t uncomfortable or exhausting. Sleeping in a different bed every night? Being so far from everyone you know? The ominous threat leaning over them with every passing second that neither of them could shake, but neither of them would talk about?

 

“There are easy ways we could save up, though,” El started.

 

“Like…”

 

“Like, well, we could… when we…”

 

“Welcome to the Lucky 7!” a chipper woman with an apron and a notepad interrupted them.

 

“Thank you,” El said, almost looking relieved. _Huh_.

 

“We have a special on the local fish of the day – trout, and on Saturday nights…” Mike tuned her out, but not because he had already decided that _yes, he was going to have another burger,_ but because of the overwhelming feeling – hot and prickly on the back of his neck – that _someone in this diner was staring at him_. Taking a breath and willing his pulse to ease back down back down, Mike turned his body towards the magnetic feeling as slowly and casually as humanly possible (for him)… all to find that he had been right.

 

Where he expected to see a brooding man in a suit or a marine or something, Mike’s eyes met a pair of green ones belonging to a random guy with dirty blonde hair standing up at the take-out counter waiting on an order. He looked to be around their age, in his late teens or early twenties but he looked _tired_ , like he hadn’t gotten a solid night’s sleep in a while. Kind of like them. He was wearing a ratty old flannel shirt, dirty jeans, and muddy sneakers – and that was all Mike could notice, because as soon as they made eye contact, he turned back to face El so abruptly that it caught her attention.

 

“Mike?”

 

“I’ll go grab some water while I give you two a second to think,” the waitress said before she disappeared to the soda fountain. El didn’t spare her a glance her way as she left, eyes trained on Mike from across the table. A knowing look on her face.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“I –“ Mike stammered, trying to decide whether or not he wanted to worry her for what felt like no reason. Not like he had much choice, seeing as she was already squinting her eyes at him in knowing concern.

 

_I gotta learn how to not look so terrified all the time._

 

He ducked his head toward her, and whispered, “There’s a guy. At the carry out counter. I think he was watching me for some reason…”

 

El looked past him, trying her hardest to be nonchalant.

 

“The guy in the green shirt?” she whispered back.

 

“Yes.”

 

“He’s not looking at us, he’s grabbing a takeout bag.”

 

“I know he’s not looking now, but he was…”

 

Mike trailed off, let out a breath, and shook his head. El’s shoulders relaxed, and she reached across the table to still his hands that were fidgeting nervously with the flaps on the menu.

 

“It’s probably nothing,” Mike said. “I just got… I don’t know, maybe I’m just –“

 

Before Mike could finish his poorly structured sentence, and before El could open up her mouth to reassure him in return, he felt a presence right beside them. This time, when he turned towards it, he saw the same green eyes from before. Except they were several feet closer, and looking down from right above him.

 

“Hey,” the kid said, his voice _way_ less intimidating than Mike expected it to be. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but overhear you guys.”

 

El looked at Mike, trying her hardest to be discreet with her widening eyes, waiting for him to say something. _Anything_.

 

“I’m sorry, that probably sounds so creepy. My bad.” The guy shifted his feet and crossed his arms across his chest with his takeout bag still in one hand. “But, I’m just curious… did you guys say you’re low on money?”

 

“Um…” Mike stalled.

 

“No.” El said, all but quoting Mike from minutes before. “We’re doing alright.”

 

“It’s not that big of a deal… and obviously you don’t have to tell me anything because I know I’m like, _a total stranger_ …” he said, and then he laughed. “I’m sorry, where are my manners?”

 

He stuck out a hand, then, for Mike to shake.

 

“My name’s Jason.”

 

“M-Mike.”

 

He moved his hand over to shake El’s.

 

“J– Uh… El,” she said.

 

“Nice to meet you Mike and El,” he said. “Can I sit?” he asked, motioning to the empty seat next to El. She scooted in towards the wall of the booth to make room, and Mike must have made some type of face because he said…

 

“It’s alright dude, I’m not going to bite your girlfriend,” after sitting down and pulling his plastic to-go box out of the bag. “I just wanted to see if you want some company.”

 

“Company might be nice…” Mike said, trying to fill that silence he hated so much.

 

“Are the two of you on the run from home?” Jason asked, leaning in. The question took Mike by utter surprise, and his eyebrows flew up his forehead.

 

“Uh… well…” Mike stammered again.

 

“Yes,” El said, answering for him. Mike looked at her and blinked. _Why on earth would you say that?_

 

“Wow, whadaya know,” the guy said, leaning in even closer. “Me too.”

 

“Where’s home?” Mike asked.

 

“Utah, outside of Salt Lake City. You?”

 

“Indiana,” Mike replied, trying to be a vague with his answer as possible.

 

“ _No shit_. A bit west of there aren’t you?”

 

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess we are.”

 

“Do you kids want anything to eat?” the waitress asked, coming out of nowhere and making Mike jump.

 

“I’ll just take a cheeseburger,” El said, without skipping a beat. “And a Diet Coke.”

 

“Um, same,” Mike said when the waitress looked to him. He hadn’t given it a shred of thought since Jason had sat down with them. “But with a regular Coke.”

 

“Nothing for you, sweetie?” she asked Jason, to which he shook his head.

 

“No, ma’am. I’m alright for now, thanks.”

 

She nodded and headed back to the kitchen.

 

“So, what made you leave?”

 

“Um…” Mike’s eyes went up to the ceiling, gears whizzing in his head, trying to come up with a _normal_ reason to run away from home.

 

_Oh, you know, El here was raised in this government lab, and they got kind of pissed off when she escaped, so…_

 

“Is she pregnant?” Jason asked, hushing his tone and nodding towards El.

 

Stunned by his question, all Mike could do was look to El. And as hard as he could see her trying to hold it in, she snickered and then she _laughed_. It was louder than she meant to, and she covered her mouth with her hands, shaking her head. Mike just rolled his eyes.

 

“That’s a no, then…”

 

“No. My dad’s just an asshole.” Mike said, changing the subject.

 

“Technically, _both_ our dads are assholes.” El chimed in, still a hint of a giggle in her voice. Mike caught her eyes and gave her his absolute best _what on earth is so damn funny to you_ look, but she kept giggling to herself out of Jason’s eyesight.

 

“Well that makes three of us with that problem,” Jason said. “My dad kicked me out because he ‘doesn’t like my way of living.’”

 

“What’s your way of living?” Mike asked.

 

“Free spirited? Beyond the bounds of rules and regulations? Some shit like that I guess.”

 

“Where are you going?” El this time. “Do you know?”

 

“I’m headed to Seattle. I have a friend there who’s going to put me up for a few days.”

 

“That’s nice,” El said. “We don’t know where we’re going.”

 

“You don’t?”

 

“No.”

 

“We’ve just been picking places on the map and driving from motel to motel, that’s what she means,” Mike clarified.

 

Their burgers came then, and Mike was happy for the brief break in conversation. El put ketchup on hers and started to dive into Mike’s fries once all of hers were gone. Jason stayed and ate with them, “for company,” he said, and as wary of a person as Mike was, he was kind of not minding having someone else to talk to. Not that he didn’t enjoy talking to El, he could just tell that they were running out of things to talk about.

 

Jason was a year older than they were. He graduated high school and when his parents sent him to college, he dropped out looking for the better parts of life that didn’t involve a classroom. His dad kicked him out when he heard Jason wouldn’t be heading back to school for sophomore year in the fall. He’d been taking any handy work he could find ever since, trying to make it week to week.

 

“I want to be an artist… I don’t know. I want to contribute something to the world.”

 

“I get it,” Mike nodded along.

 

Weirdly enough, the more and more Jason rambled on about his home life, and the more El watched him with wide eyes, the less uncomfortable Mike was with him – even going as far as to complain about his own dad to him. Mike had spent the better part of their time on the road _convinced_ that every person giving them a sideways glance ( _or any glance for that matter_ ) were movie-grade government spies sent to kidnap them and take them straight to the Bad Men Headquarters. Now, he realized with the same giggle that El had earlier, they probably just thought he knocked his girlfriend up and split town.

 

_Not everyone is against us. Not everyone is after us._

 

It was a nice thought.

 

After dinner was over and paid for, the three of them walked out of the diner towards the motel, shuffling around saying goodbyes. The fog of the night was settling in, making El yawn and latch herself on to Mike’s arm as he looked for the motel office.

 

“Well, we’re outside of Spokane right now, Seattle is about four hours from here.” Jason said, sifting some of the gravel under his sneakers. “I’m staying in the Motel 6 tonight and heading there tomorrow afternoon. I could see if my buddy could spot you too for a few days?”

 

“We’re –“ Mike said, getting ready to fumble his way through an ill-thought out excuse.

 

“You’ve got to be running low on cash.” Jason, continued. “Unless you’re rich kids or something.”

 

_Or something_ , Mike thought. _Definitely or something._

 

“No, we couldn’t, we’re –“

 

“We’ll talk about it. Tonight. Let you know in the morning?” El said, ever so subtly squeezing Mike’s arm a little tighter so he would get the hint.

 

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Jason said with a smile. “I’m in 112.”

 

He gestured toward his room on the ground floor. “If you want to head towards Seattle with me, just give me a knock and let me know.” He sauntered off towards his room, fishing for the key in his pocket. “Have a good night, Mike and El.”

 

“You too,” El waved.

 

\---------

 

“I think we should go to Seattle with him.”

 

“ _You_ think we should go to Seattle with a guy we just met at a motel diner?”

 

“ _I_ think he said we could stay for free.”

 

“El, this isn’t about money.” Mike said, pulling the crumpled manila envelope out of his back pocket and tossing it on to the bedside table. “We don’t have to stay anywhere for free. We’re doing okay, see for yourself.”

 

“I’m sure we’re okay for now, but we don’t know how long we’re going to be out here,” El reasoned. “And Jason is perfectly nice.”

 

“I’m not saying he isn’t...”

 

“Why don’t we just try it,” she said, grabbing his hands before he could slip them back in his pockets as she did so. “If we don’t like it, we can make up an excuse and leave.”

 

Mike sighed.

 

“What,” El asked, leaning in and cocking her head to one side. “Do you have a bad feeling?”

 

“No, I mean, it’s not him. I think he’s a nice guy,” Mike said. “It’s just – aren’t we supposed to keep to ourselves? I mean, what if he –“

 

“You think he works for _them_?”

 

“No…”

 

“Then what?”

 

“I… don’t know… what if he figures us out? Turns us in?” Mike asked, wincing as he said it. He knew it was impossible. He was just… worried. Like usual. Worried about everything.

 

“ _Oh, come on Mike_.”

 

“What?”

 

“I wouldn’t let him do that,” she said, quirking an eyebrow.

 

“Yeah, you’re right,” Mike laughed, lightening a little.

 

“I know.”

 

“I just… Sometimes I forget.” Mike dropped his eyes to the mustard colored shag carpet.

 

“Forget what?”

 

“I forget that everyone hasn’t… been through what we have. That not everyone knows what we know.”

 

“I think I know what you mean,” she said, her thumbs rubbing the backs of his hands.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I forget people aren’t like me sometimes,” El said as she backed away from him, unzipping her bag looking for her toothbrush.

 

“ _There’s no way_.”

 

“Oh, there’s a way,” El smiled, turning back around to face him. “When people complain about certain things… like getting up to turn the light off or something… I think _‘why can’t you just…’_ ”

 

“Why can’t the rest of us just flick it off with our spooky weird brain powers?”

 

“Hey,” she said, mockingly hurt, but laughing anyway. She moved to push him, toothbrush in hand, but he caught her before she could do much damage. “My brain powers aren’t spooky or weird.”

 

“Of course they’re not.” Mike said, pulling her to him, her head settling on his chest. He took a deep breath.

 

“We should go to Seattle tomorrow. With Jason. If you think it’s the smart thing to do.”

 

“I do.”

 

“Okay,” he said, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and felt her smile against his sweatshirt.

 

They would be fine, he knew they would.

 

“Besides,” she said, “Isn’t it nice to know we’re not all alone?”

 

\---------

 

_June 30, 1989 – 3:46 PM_

_Seattle, Washington_

 

Who would have thought.

 

Who would have ever thought that Mike would feel so at home in Seattle?

 

For a decision he was really wary to make, this had to have been one of the best outcomes. Usually, he had to be _sure_ about something for it to turn out as planned. He was iffy about following Jason out across the state of Washington – keeping up with his rusty Chevrolet pick-up truck as he flew down Highway 90. But he had shown up for them in every possible way, and then some.

 

Jason knew a guy from high school that worked in the hospitality business. It was a new place, so they were nowhere near capacity, and after a few minutes of sitting in the car while Jason went in to the office “talk to his buddy,” he came back out with two keys in hand. One for him, and one for his new friends Mike and El.

 

The key that room led too… well, Mike could hardly call it a room. It was more like a condo. A vacation rental house. A chalet? He wasn’t sure what the correct term was, but he knew it was a _lot_ nicer than the dumps they’d been staying in before.

 

It was in a beautiful little forest area, for starters – with a beautiful view of the city. El’s eyes had lit up like fireworks when she saw it. There were two bedrooms, a kitchen stocked with hand-me-down cooking supplies, a fridge, and sectional that pointed them right towards the TV.

 

It was a _little dated,_ as his mom would say, but it was nice. _Way_ too nice for them to be staying for free. But Mike wasn’t going to complain about that. He was just happy they had somewhere to land for a few days. They weren’t home, but sometimes, they could pretend like they were.

 

As a matter of fact, Mike found it really hard to tell the difference between here and home. Some of the reason was feeling content, being stable, not driving for hours a day… but mostly, in the present moment, it’s definitely because Mike had his sleeves up washing dishes in the kitchen – a chore from home he didn’t particularly miss.

 

El had decided she wanted pasta last night, and so the two of them had skipped across the street to the convenience store, picked up the ingredients they needed (along with the cookie dough and brownie mix they didn’t) and had actually whipped themselves up a nice little meal. Desserts and all. They ate it at the little kitchen table, talking about their days. The walk around the resort complex El took this morning. The movie Mike wanted to take them to see at a nearby theatre he saw in the local paper.

 

Jason came to check on them every now and again, making sure they were doing alright. Asking if they were in the mood for lunch or dinner down the street. Mike would always offer or try to sneakily pay for his food – the least he could do for him, after he helped them find this _near perfect_ place to stay – but he always put a hand up and refused.

 

_“That kind of stuff always evens out in the end anyway, man.”_

 

Jason was a nice guy. El always had a knack for picking out the nice guys, he figured. She always had great intuition, and she hadn’t led him astray – not that he was surprised. Jason gave them advice on where to hike, sights to see, and postcards for El to buy. She wrote notes on them in her spare time and kept them in the pages of her book – that she had finished a long time ago during a particularly long stretch through North Dakota.

 

_Maybe I should surprise her with another book,_ Mike thought. Just as he was devising a plan to run to the store across the street, he heard her call from the couch in the living room, where she was all curled up in a knit blanket with her eyes fixed on the TV.

 

“Mike?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Are you done yet?”

 

“Almost, why?” Mike asked, peeking around the corner while swirling a dishtowel around the inside of the pasta strainer.

 

“Come watch _Days of Our Lives_ with me,” she said in mock demand.

 

“And what if I don’t want to come watch _Days of Our Lives?_ ”

 

“Then I want you to come sit with me and _pretend_ to watch _Days of Our Lives.”_

 

She was folded around to face him now, her elbows perched on the back of the couch and her head resting on her hands.

 

Before they got to Seattle, she had been looking more and more exhausted since they’d left home… _what was it… 17 or 18 days ago?_ She was turning back into her old self here, since they were both getting some much-needed rest. Mike could feel the less-paranoid, care-free version of himself slowly breaking free. It felt good to feel like a teenager after having to feel so much like a very very responsible adult for so long.

 

After El’s one-sided conversation with Hopper last Sunday, she had been a little down. His message had been the same.

 

_“He misses us. He loves us. He wants us to stay away and stay safe. Will wishes us well. I think he was there with him this time.”_

 

After she was done giving him the recap, she wandered in the bathroom and took a long bath and Mike felt just fine about giving her some space as he flipped through the TV channels looking for something to take his mind off the fact that they were _in for another week of all this._

 

“Pretty please,” she batted her eyelashes, and Mike snapped back to what was happening right in front of him.

 

“Do I have to?” he whined, turning around to throw the dish towel over the sink.

 

“Yes.”

 

Mike sighed and rolled his eyes.

 

He stepped over the back of the couch, and she pulled her blanket around to make a spot for him underneath it. He threw an arm around her shoulders, and she settled into his side with one hand on his chest.

 

“Only if I have to.”

 

But he didn’t have to. Not really.

 

Because despite the woman on TV that was crying to some man about some stupid thing she did and how it was all her fault and blah blah blah _blah blah_ , El didn’t really seem to be that interested in the show. Because when he turned to ask her a why the woman was so upset in the first place, she reached up for his face and pulled him in to kiss him. Without hesitation, he kissed her back.

 

And now it really did feel like home. So much so that it was nearly intoxicating. Nearly dangerous. If every day could be like this for the rest of his life, he didn’t really see a reason to go home. He was drawing a blank. Couldn’t think of one good reason. Not while El’s hand moved around to the back of his head to run her fingers through his hair.

 

The TV and the woman crying and his clothes smelling like dirty dishes and the birds chirping outside and everything else that had been filling his senses in the past few days just melted away. It was nice to feel it melt.

 

But then…

 

BAM BAM BAM.

 

…someone outside banged on the door _so hard_ , Mike swore he felt it vibrate through the air all the way to where he was all tangled up with El on the couch.

 

Instantly startled, El pulled back from him with wide eyes and looked towards the door, and back at him with an urgency in her eyes and a crease in her forehead that Mike felt like he hadn’t seen in years. Absolute panic.

 

“ _Mike,”_ she whispered, as they both shot up off the couch. _“Who is that?”_

 

_“I don’t know,”_ he whispered back. _“Let’s just…”_ he put a finger over his lips to signal for her to keep quiet. Maybe whoever it was would just go away. Maybe it was a big mistake Maybe it was a joke. Maybe they had the wrong room.

 

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM

 

“Open fucking door!”

 

El looked to Mike again, but he was already easing toward the door to get a look out of their peephole. He trying his absolute hardest to avoid making even the slightest creak on the hardwood floors.

 

“Fucking shit. I know you two are in there. Open the fucking door before I open it for you!”

 

“ _Oh my god, I knew it._ ” El whispered from behind him, and he whipped around to look back at her. Her hands were covering her nose and mouth and her eyes were starting to wet with tears. He turned around to look through the hole in the door.

 

Mike didn’t see men in suits. He didn’t see police officers. He didn’t see marines. He didn’t see Hawkins Energy Vans. He didn’t see a damned demogorgon.

 

He saw _Jason_ , a black hood pulled up to shield his face from the light of day.

 

_Well, fuck._

 

Mike took a deep breath, and turned to El and nodded.

 

_“It’s him,”_ he mouthed to her

 

She didn’t look as afraid anymore, one angry. Her hands balled up into fists and her breath shaky.

 

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM

 

Mike jumped away from the door this time, the booming too close to his ears. He covered them with his hands and closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds, but it did nothing. They were still inside, and Jason was still out there. Still banging on the door.

 

“You’ve got ‘till the count of three!”

 

“ _Don’t do anything unless you have to,”_ Mike whispered to El, before he reached a shaky hand to the door knob, turned the lock, and creaked it open.

 

Jason shouldered his way in and kicked the door shut behind them, locking it back. Mike stepped back to where El stood, almost motionless out of shock. He tried to move in front of her, but she stepped out beside him anyway.

 

“Hands up! Both of you.” Jason said. Mike complied, but El stood stock still, not moving a muscle.

 

“Come on, pretty, I said hands up.”

 

Out of the front pocket of his dirty black hoodie, Jason pulled out a pocket pistol and cocked it back, pointing the barrel straight at her. Mike whipped his head to look at her, and nudged her with his left elbow.

 

“ _El.”_

 

Seemingly unphased, keeping the same expression of anger across her features, El slowly moved her hands up into the air.

 

“Now, you two, I know got cash. Where is it.”

 

“What the hell, man, what are you – ?” Mike stuttered.

 

“Your little stash you carry around in your pocket? The one with the wads of cash in it? You can’t think I’m that blind,” Jason laughed.

 

“Come on, Jason, we need that money.”

 

Jason snickered again.

 

“ _Right_. Well, I think you two need to run along home now. Back to your loaded parents out in Illinois or wherever the hell... I know they’d probably be _so happy_ to see your faces again, they’d forget all about the cash you swiped from them.”

 

“ _You don’t know one thing about us_ ,” El deadpanned, dropping her arms back down. He raised his gun back up at her head and she tensed, raising them up again.

 

Jason didn’t pick up on it, how could he? Mike knew, though. He could hear it in her tone. It was a threat.

 

“I know enough,” he chuckled again. “I know you’re out here where you don’t belong. I know you’ve got cash. I know I don’t.”

 

El continued to glare at him, her eyes still wet, but no tears had actually started to fall down her cheeks just yet. She didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. To Mike, it all felt like slow motion, and he knew what was going to come next if he didn’t try to stop it.

 

“No,” she said.

 

“Do you really want to start a fight with me, sweetheart? I’m not afraid,” Jason taunted, keeping the gun pointed at her chest.

 

_He probably should be_ , Mike thought.

 

Mike saw El focus her eyes on his gun, dropping her head down…

 

“Let me go get it! Let me go get it. It’s in the back,” Mike said, stepping in the line of fire and putting his hand on El’s shoulder to stop her. She took in a sharp breath. Jason nodded.

 

The blood in his body was pulsing through him so fast it made him feel almost weightless as Mike bounded into the bedroom, _so so so_ grateful that Jason had decided not to follow him. He opened the drawer in the bed side table, ready to grab the weapon Hopper passed to him _for this very reason_ when he noticed something. Next to the envelope with their money, there was nothing. No gun. No ammo. Nothing.

 

_Son of a bitch. I left the gun in the car._

 

If it were still possible at this point, Mike’s pulse quickened even more.

 

The only way they were going to get out of this is if El stopped him _somehow_. Mike knew he wasn’t going to be able to overpower him… Jason was shorter than he was by a couple inches, but he was stockier. He played basketball in high school. Mike was the clumsiest to ever exist, he feared.

 

Yep, El was going to have to _do something_.

 

But how were they going to keep him quiet afterward? From running straight to the police? With a gulp, Mike realized that El probably had to kill him. And then, they’d be runaways _and_ murderers. While technically, they were defending themselves from an armed robbery, how could they explain to authorities how they snapped this kids’ spine in two with their bare hands? And what if the authorities were _the wrong_ authorities…

 

Mike shivered. _You’ve got to think faster, man._

 

Shaking his thoughts away, he pulled out a fourth of their cash and stuffed it under the mattress as quickly and quietly as he could. Just enough for them to get home. Just enough for them to run away from here.

 

“There,” Mike said, walking back into the room with the envelope and passing it to Jason, who eased up on his stance and reached in to thumb through the cash with one hand and hold on to his gun with the other. “Now can you let us go? Please?”

 

“Where’d you stash the rest of it?”

 

“ _What_? That’s all. That’s all I have,” Mike tried to be convincing, but he knew it wasn’t working. He was never that great at lying.

 

El’s wide eyes darted between the two of them.

 

“Tell me where you stashed the rest of it,” Jason said, with an eerie sense of calm. “ _And I won’t do this_.”

 

He moved suddenly around, grabbing El around the shoulders and holding her down with one arm and sticking his gun to her head.

 

_Shit._

 

Mike stepped towards him, but he felt everything slip into slow motion again. Honestly, he wasn’t that worried about El – he knew she could get herself out of his grasp easy as anything. She didn’t look that worried either _,_ just inconvenienced. She was looking to Mike, her eyes just _begging_ for him to give her the go ahead. So she could snap his neck like a little twig on the ground under her foot.

 

But he didn’t.

 

“Alright, here.” Mike walked back toward the bedroom, and Jason followed, pushing El in front of him. “Here’s the rest.”

 

He fished the cash out from under the bed, his hands still shaking.

 

“That’s more like it.”

 

He let go of El then, and pushed her towards Mike. She reached out for him, grabbing on to his arm and squeezing – Mike could just feel that it wasn’t out of fear or relief, but anger.

 

“Now, I’m going to go... It’s been nice getting to know you,” Jason said, slipping the rest of the cash in his front pocket, and the gun in the back of his jeans. Mike and El stood still. He could feel her ragged breathing on his arm.

 

“Just some advice from you to me,” he continued, backing out of the door towards the living room. “I’d get out of here before the manager knows you won’t be paying him.”

 

And just as quickly as he’d popped into their lives, he slipped out the front door, and El crumpled to her knees with a hand over her mouth, finally letting those tears that were stuck in the rims of her eyes start to flow. Mike knelt down to meet her, he didn’t know what else to do, his thumbs wiping tears from her cheeks as she looked up at him.

 

“Mike, _what are we going to do_?”

 

He always felt that this was why they made a great pair. She was the strong one. She was the fierce one. When she was tired of being so strong and fierce and stubborn and brave all the time, he was always there to just be with her. Be whatever she needed – a friend, a companion, someone to love, someone help her find answers

 

At this moment though, he didn’t have any answers. He _didn’t know_ what they were going to do. As he looked into her eyes and felt her trembling hands holding on to his wrists, he couldn’t even summon up words. He swallowed, and felt tears of his own welling up. He tried his best to sniff them away, but he couldn’t. He took a shaky breath.

 

“We’ve got to go.”

 

Within minutes, Mike and El were all but running out the back door. Hurriedly packed bags slung over their shoulders, and El’s pillow hugged tightly in her arms, they rushed to their car parked on the side of the property.

 

Slipping away again, into the dusk of the early evening this time, Mike pulled back on to the highway and stepped on the gas, speeding away in whichever direction he ended up driving in – he didn’t know, and he didn’t really care.

 

El didn’t speak. She stared out the window and tried to slow her breathing. She looked numb to it all, as the landscape and skyline of Seattle flew past them. Mike almost couldn’t look. He knew she would talk to him tomorrow. Tomorrow everything would be a little clearer, a little easier to understand, a little easier to unpack. Together. The next, more difficult phase.

 

Tomorrow Mike might be able to come up with an answer to her question from earlier, she sounded so desperate he feared it would haunt him in his nightmares.

 

_“What are we going to do?”_

 

Mike pressed down on the gas just a little bit harder, as if that would get him to tomorrow that much faster.

 

_Not everyone is against us. Not everyone is after us._

 

It really _was_ a nice thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate to be like "things will get better for them I promise!" but... things will get better for them I promise. 
> 
> Let me know how you feel!! Hopefully, with the holiday coming up soon, I can work on the next chapter and get it out to you a little bit faster this time. Until then, thank you for your support!! <3


	5. The Unlucky Streak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike and El try their hardest to recover from their latest blunder. El comes up with a plan that seems to be their only chance to get back on their feet, only Mike isn't so eager to try it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. I know. It's been way too long. The holidays man, they'll get ya. 
> 
> I hope everyone had a good holiday celebrating or not celebrating or what have you - and a great start to the new year! I've already broken some resolutions (like writing every day... lol), but what else is new?
> 
> But don't read my shitty excuses... read the chapter!

_June 30th, 1989 – 6:56 PM_

_Garcia, Washington_

 

It was happening again.

 

Things were spinning out of her control. She was putting the people she cared about in danger. She almost got her very best friend, her favorite person, _killed_. Again.

 

For what seemed like the umpteenth time that hour, El huffed out another breath. It was helping to slow her heart down, but it wasn’t helping to clear her mind. Her tears from earlier had dried on her cheeks, making her face feel stiff. Her nose was stopped up. Her vision was a bit cloudy. With everything that was going so spectacularly wrong, she couldn’t even _focus_ on coming up with a way to get them out of the mess she made.

 

She jammed her face into her pillow up against the window, and blew out another shaky breath.

 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Mike said timidly from the other side of the car. She could hear it in his voice that he was just as lost in thought as she was.

 

_If it’s gonna be okay, tell me how._

 

“No, it’s not,” El said into her pillow.

 

Mike didn’t even respond. He just kept driving, as if that was all he knew how to do anymore.

 

She hadn’t looked at him in 20 minutes. She couldn’t bring herself to. She knew when she looked at him, the expression on his face would be comforting and reassuring, and she didn’t deserve it.

 

When was she going to learn? Nobody could be trusted. Not one. No one but her friends.

 

“Don’t beat yourself up, okay?” she heard Mike say. “It’s not your fault.”

 

“It is,” she said, sniffing and shifting her head away from him to look out the window and the streetlights flashing by. “It’s always my fault.”

 

“No, it’s –“

 

“Don’t deny it,” she snapped, finally looking over at him. He looked exactly like she’d imagined. He looked _oh so sorry_ for her.

 

“What if something bad happened to you?” she asked. He swallowed, saying nothing for a moment.

 

“All my fault,” El mumbled under her breath. “Again.”

 

“Hey,” he forced a smile on his face and moved his right hand to rub her shoulder. “Nothing bad happened to either of us. We got lucky. Like we’ve got some kind of lucky streak going.”

 

“You think _that_ was lucky?” El almost laughed. “We have an _unlucky_ streak, Mike. Bad things keep happening to us and _they’re because of_ –“

 

“I _mean_ we have a lucky streak getting ourselves out of sticky situations.”

 

El huffed again, and laid her head back down on her pillow.

 

“I don’t see it that way.”

 

Mike didn’t respond, but she felt him slow the car down a little bit. He had probably been pushing them faster and faster to match his rising blood pressure.

 

“That’s fine,” he said, his tone deflated. El’s heart sank just a little. Deep down, she wanted him to keep trying to convince her that things were going to be alright – eventually, things would untangle themselves. But, he was probably too exhausted and frustrated to keep on.

 

“I’ve gotta stop, though, El. It’s dark, and my eyes are getting tired, and I think we need to sleep.”

 

“Where are we going to sleep? We don’t have any money to – ”

 

“We’re going to stop here,” Mike interrupted, flipping the blinker on and drifting them off the highway and into the **GARCIA** **NATURE PRESERVE & REST STOP**, following the bright blue sign in his headlights. “And we’re going to have to sleep in the car until we can figure something else out.”

 

El looked at him. She really didn’t understand him sometimes. How he just kept going. How he could justify all of this in his mind. How when his eyes met hers as he pulled the car into a vacant parking spot off to the side all on their own, he didn’t look angry or tired or frustrated. He just smiled at her sleepily, and shifted the car into park.

 

“There should be restrooms in that building back over there…” he said sheepishly. “If you wanna get ready for bed or anything.” El turned to look at him again, still hugging her pillow.

 

“I don’t want to go by myself,” she said.

 

Mike glanced at her and glanced down at his hands in his lap and she could see the gears in his mind turning, until…

 

“I wasn’t going to show you this because I thought it would freak you out,” Mike said, leaning over to open the console across from her. “But I guess there’s no point to that now.”

 

“Show me what?” El sat up in her seat, pulling her pillow into her lap.

 

“When Hopper sent us out, he sent me with one of these.” Mike continued, as he blindly fumbled around for something… only to pull out a _pistol_ seconds later. El sucked in a breath and jumped back in her seat just a little.

 

“Mike, that’s…”

He kept going.

 

“I didn’t want you to think we were in any kind of danger but I kept it with us in the motel rooms just in case.”

 

She looked at him with wide eyes. Her mouth hung open, just slightly

 

He looked at the gun in his hands. He didn’t meet her eyes, he just fiddled with it. It made her nervous. Mike fiddling always made her nervous. Those _things_ always made her nervous.

 

“Why didn’t you use it earlier, then,” she asked, trying to sound like he wasn’t making her anxious with that gun in his hands.

 

“Because I let my guard down and left it in the car.” Mike swallowed. “I got too comfortable.”

 

Mike took a deep breath and set his jaw, finally looking up from the gun in his lap to look at El, who was trying to look as neutral as she could.

 

“I’m sorry, El. This whole thing… was my fault. Not yours.”

 

She could tell he was holding something back from her, but she figured now wasn’t the time to press him.

 

“Both our faults,” El said, eyeing him. “We can compromise.”

 

He nodded, still looking solemn.

 

“I’m still sorry.”

 

“Me too.”

 

He turned from her to crack his door open, sliding out of the car and sliding the pistol into the waistband of his jeans. He leaned down to look at her.

 

“Come on, I’ll go with you.”

 

He had parked them a ways away from the rest stop area, even though there weren’t very many people there. A few semi-trucks had parked for the evening already, but El didn’t see any people milling about. She didn’t see any families with carefree children chasing each other around the parking lot. She didn’t see any pesky teenagers avoiding their parents. It was just her and Mike, speed walking with toiletry bags in hand towards the blinking fluorescent light of the public restrooms.

 

Mike nodded at her before he veered off to the men’s room, and El almost felt guilty to admit it. As much as she wanted and needed him here with her, she was happy to be alone.

 

It wasn’t him. It was just _everything_. Everything was too much, and it was starting to feel like it used to – in a bad way that felt like it was creeping up on her and following her from every corner. Closing in. All consuming.

 

There were wooden doors to the restrooms lining the back walls, and El swiftly moved in the first one she could find. She hung her toiletry bag and the pair of pajama pants she’d carried with her to change into on the hook on the door and sat down on the toilet, put her face in her hands and _cried._ Not loud though. She held in all the sound she could. She didn’t want him to hear her through the walls if they were thin.

 

That’s what she did for the first four or so minutes in the stall. She rubbed her eyes and quietly held in sniffles and uneven breathing. Once she felt herself get her breath back under control, she wiped the tears off her cheeks with her sleeve.

 

It almost felt good. To just cry. Let it all out of her system.

 

Now her head was clear to _think._

 

With this newfound ability to think clearly for the first time in the past few _insane_ hours, she went over their options.

 

They could just commit to being homeless and find a city to panhandle in – with signs and everything – asking for change until they could save up enough for gas or a plane ticket home… who knows how long that would take. And how dangerous that would be. El didn’t want Mike to have to live out on the street like that.

 

They could bum a ride off some truck driver, as long as they were nice and reliable this far west. El wasn’t so sure about that idea, despite her luck and success in the past – she wasn’t in the mood to trust anyone.

 

Maybe they could get a job at a nearby diner or rest stop and make some cash before hitting the road. She could do handy work, and pretty easily too. She could wait tables. She could –

 

“El, are you okay in there?” Mike called from outside the women’s entrance.

 

“Yes, just a minute!” El called, trying to sound cheery while scrambling just a little to change into the pajamas she’d brought in. She moved from the bathroom stall to the sink, and broke out her toothbrush and toothpaste, squeezing some blue goop onto the brush and wetting it under the… _questionable_ sink water. The lights above her flickered a bit – not in the concerning way, but in the ‘bad wiring’ way – and she looked up to meet her red eyes and puffy face.

 

Toothbrush hanging out of her mouth, she went to grab a paper towel from the dispenser – but there wasn’t any. Just a wastebasket overflowing with wadded up, damp brown paper. Rolling her eyes, El ran the cold water from the sink, and splashed some into her face, trying to rub the ‘I just spent 5 minutes crying in a dirty bathroom stall’ look off of her face.

 

Looking into her own worn down, irritated, and (although she hated to admit it) timid eyes in the mirror, she finally had an idea. One that just might work. All she had to do was convince Mike to be on board. Luckily for her, convincing Mike to do things was a strong suit of hers. She spit in the sink, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and nodded at herself in the mirror.

 

 _Enough moping around_ , she thought, breathing out one last frustrated breath. _It’s time to fix this._

 

Emerging from the women’s room, her bag under her arm, El held her head a little bit higher. She breathed a little easier. Mike could tell, because he was looking at her in that way he does when he can’t quite read her. Perplexed and thrown.

 

They both got back in the car – Mike on the driver’s side and El in the passenger as a force of habit. Once they both sat down, Mike reached for the ignition out of habit. He signed, and sat back in his seat instead of turning it.

 

“Right, I forgot we’re not going anywhere.”

 

He fumbled around on the side of his seat and leaned it all the way back. A makeshift bed. El groaned internally, mentally preparing for the world’s stiffest neck tomorrow morning.

 

“The handle is on the right side of yours, El.”

 

Without a word she followed his lead, and the back of her seat sprung downward. She was eye level with Mike once her seat was all the way down and for some reason she found that funny and she started to _laugh_. So did he. It began as a stifled giggle and then moved on to actual laughter. El was so surprised. She thought it would take her a little while to laugh again.

 

It must be her big idea, the one that was banging on the back of her mind, begging to be brought out into the open air around them.

 

She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to the punch.

 

“How did we end up here,” he said, his melancholy returning as he sighed and turned to look up at the roof of the car.

 

“I don’t know,” she said.

 

She listened to him breathe for a second. Now must be as good a time as any.

 

“Mike, I have an idea.”

 

He turned to face her, his eyebrows raised.

 

“But you have to promise to hear me out.”

 

“I’ll listen to any ideas you’ve got, El.” He said, turning and propping himself up on his right elbow.

 

She took a deep breath.

 

“I think we need to take the money.”

 

“ _Take_ the money?”

 

“Yes. I think we need to pick a spot, and take the money we need. Just what we need.”

 

“You mean… like _steal it_?”

 

“Yes, I mean like steal it.”

 

“El…”

 

“You promised,” she reminded him, holding his gaze, which was entirely stunned by what she’d just said. “We won’t hurt anyone.”

 

“El.”

 

“Some cash for gas, some food, some water, and we’ll go. They’ll never see us again. They’ll go back to living their own lives.”

 

“El, hold on. Do you hear your– “

 

“We can use your gun. We won’t hurt anyone with it but they won’t know that.”

 

“ _El!_ ”

 

Caught off guard by his sudden change in tone and volume, El leaned back. Her eyes flew open wide. He hadn’t yelled her like that. Not in a long time.

 

“ _Do you hear what you’re saying_?”

 

“Well, _yes._ ”

 

“ _You_ think the best way forward is to _rob people at gunpoint_?”

 

_Well, not when you say it that way…_

 

“Yes.”

 

“Innocent people?”

 

“They’re – “ she started to explain, but he had apparently heard enough, taking his turn at cutting her off.

 

“This isn’t going to fix things, El. It’s going to make it worse. And you know it.”

 

“And what will fix things, Mike? What’s our next move?”

 

“I-I um. I’m not sure yet.” Mike laid back down in his seat to look back up at the roof of the car. He reached up to pick a piece of fuzz out from above him.

 

“You don’t know.”

 

“Yet.”

 

“Mike.”

 

He didn’t say anything then, just concentrated on the little ball of fuzz that he picked off the roof. He rolled it up between his fingers, as El watched him, annoyed. _He doesn’t understand._

 

“Sometimes… you have to do things that aren’t nice. But they’re still good things,” she tried.

 

“El, I don’t know where this is coming from,” Mike said, turning his head from the _riveting_ ball of fuzz to look her in the eyes.

 

“We wouldn’t hurt anyone. They won’t hurt us. We’ll just take what we need and run.”

 

_Why can’t he just trust me?_

 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. How are you so certain it will work? That we can pull it off? What if we get caught?”

 

“I know how it works. I’ve done it before.”

 

 _Shit._ It had just fallen out. She’d forgotten to think.

 

Mike’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. El shut her mouth just as quickly as she had opened it.

 

“You’ve _robbed_ someone before?! Who have you… ?”

 

She could tell as soon as he trailed his sentence that he could read the look on her face. The one that just _begged_ him to not to press any further. Miraculously, he didn’t. He just took a deep breath and focused back on his ball of fuzz.

 

“Nevermind,” he said. “But I don’t think this is our answer, El.”

 

“Then what is?”

 

“I don’t know yet, but we need sleep regardless. So, let’s just sleep on it, okay?”

 

El sighed and adjusted her head on pillow, settling in to the cold seat as best as she could. She nodded.

 

She knew he wouldn’t love the idea. In fact, she knew he would fight it. He had seen bad things, he had known bad things, but not in the way she did. They were all strategic moves in a game for him, but they were all means of survival for her. Or they had been, in a different time that seemed like another life all together.

 

Maybe tomorrow, seeing the sun rise up on a new day, she would find the strength to tell him – about all of it. Maybe that would convince him. It was for their own good. She knew it. Something inside told her it was the right move to make.

 

“I’m sorry today happened,” Mike said, folding an arm under his head to use as a pillow, facing her. “Tomorrow will be different.”

 

“Better, I hope,” she said. He smiled, and she moved her right hand to touch his face. “I’m sorry, too.”

 

“I love you,” he said, kissing the palm of her hand as he did so. He reached up then, and held on to her wrist.

 

“I love you, too,” she responded, sure as anything. Truth be told, it was one of the few things she had ever been so sure about.

 

“Let’s try and get some sleep and then get the hell out of here first thing tomorrow morning.”

 

El giggled.

 

“Sound good to you?”

 

Somehow, within minutes, El felt herself falling helplessly towards sleep, her free hand still intertwined with Mike’s, in-between their seats. She thought she would spend all night thinking of _legal_ ways to get rich quick and stay alive. Or better yet, thinking of how to convince Mike that the laws were sometimes made for breaking.

 

He’d gone all soft on her since high school started. Since the nightmarish threats started to taper off, he had traded his adventurous side for a cautious one – meaning his idea of an elaborate plan was sneaking a Tupperware container of his mom’s cookies into the movie theater. She knew he meant to keep her out of harms way, _like that was necessary_. But it was this new, grown up version of Mike that she loved endlessly still made her miss being young and reckless and carefree – despite how terrible it proved to be from time to time.

 

Now was not the time for all that, because a day of betrayal and stress and driving and yelling and crying and _horrible thoughts_ was ending, and a new one was going to begin the minute El opened her eyes to the morning…

 

…except it didn’t. El’s eyes flew open wide when she heard something or _someone_ tap on the car window behind her. She gasped. The tapping had woken Mike up too, except not as quickly because he was groggily blinking and getting ready to ask her what that sound was when his eyes went in to focus, and she watched him see what was behind her.

 

He dropped her hand and sat up.

 

“ _Shit._ ”

 

El sat up too, and whipped around.

 

 _A policeman_.

 

Two of them actually. One of them had been tapping on the glass with a night stick and the other one was shining the brightest light straight into her eyes. She squinted and brought a hand up to cover her face.

 

“You kids wanna roll the window down? Let us know why you two are parked out here in the middle of the night?”

 

El looked to Mike to tell her what to do, but he just looked scared shitless. All white in the face. He didn’t look at her, his eyes were fixed on them. Frozen in panic and waiting for El to make the first move.

 

“You can roll the window down or we can run your plate number and call your parents. Your call.”

 

With a shaky hand, El rolled the passenger window down. Neither El nor Mike said a word.

 

“Do your parents know you’re out this late?” The one with the nightstick asked. “It’s 3:30 in the morning.”

 

El said “Yes,” at the exact same time that Mike said “No.”

 

“Well which one is it?”

 

He had a snarky tone to his voice, one that El wasn’t so sure she liked when it wasn’t playfully teasing her when she stopped by to visit Hop at work. She knew how cops worked – or at least, she knew how the ones who worked for her dad worked. When it came to this – teenagers and sneaking out and general messing around – they were all talk and no game. They would only make an arrest if they absolutely had to. And she and Mike hadn’t been doing anything wrong.

 

“It’s both,” El said, squinting from the light. “We don’t live with our parents anymore, so they technically don’t need to know where we are at all times, right?”

 

“Let’s see some IDs.”

 

El prayed Mike had a response to this one.

 

“Uh, yes sir,” he said from behind her. “I’ll grab yours, Megan.”

 

_Megan?_

 

He fumbled around in the back while El just watched him, until he pulled out two IDs with their faces on them. Only thing out of place was her name and address. Her name was Megan Davis and Collin Richards. Both 19 years old from Indiana. Two regular adults. Minding their own.

 

El handed the officers the IDs, and they looked them over underneath scrunched eyebrows.

 

“What are you doing all the way out here from Indiana?”

 

“Camping,” Mike answered before El could even open her mouth to speak. “We’re on a road trip and we’ve been just sleeping in the car to save up for gas. You know – traveling the country before we head off to college?”

 

 _College…_ El’s heart sank, silly enough. That was a word El hadn’t thought about in a few weeks. What a tiny, irrelevant problem in comparison to the one they were facing right now.

 

“We’ve never had this issue before,” El said curtly. “Is it illegal to park here?”

 

“It’s legal to park here, but not over night,” the officer with the flashlight explained. “This is the local parking spot where all the teenagers hang out… we’re always patrolling out here.”

 

“So, we need to leave?” Mike asked. El hoped that was all they needed to do. Leave.

 

It was an agonizing, watching them look from their licenses, then to each other, then back at Mike and El.

 

“Yeah, we can’t have you stay on this rest lot.”

 

The two officers passed the IDs back to El, who put them in the cupholder for her to inspect later.

 

“If it helps, there’s a motel a half mile down the highway. The rooms are half price after midnight on weekdays.”

 

The officers started to back away to their patrol car. They kept an eye on Mike and El as they moved.

 

“Thanks,” Mike said with a weary smile as he moved his seat upright and started the ignition. “We’ll try that.”

 

El rolled up the window and continued looking straight on, trying her hardest to ignore the blood pumping loudly in her ears. So loudly she felt that it was impossible that the policemen couldn’t hear it from several feet away.

 

“Mike,” El said. She could hear her voice shaking. “Now what do we do.”

 

“We get the hell out of here.”

 

Mike backed the car out of the parking spot gingerly, and followed the policemen out of the rest area until they took a right turn down another path, and Mike and El were finally on their own again – their headlights hitting the nearest trees, branches, and creatures along the road.

 

El felt numb to it, almost. One bad break after another. One deep breath to calm the nerves after another.

 

She could tell Mike was starting to speed, as they whizzed past the motel the policemen had mentioned – where she thought they’d be parking for the night. Or, at least, begging for a free room or counting the change in between the seats for one night’s fare.

 

“Mike…”

 

But he was well past that now, and he either ignored her or didn’t hear her. Her surroundings were flying by her in a way that was almost unnerving.

 

“Mike, you’re going too fast.”

 

“Yeah, and what if they catch us, huh?” he shot back, agitated. Not at her, she could tell, and she put a hand on his shoulder, moving her thumb across the top of his shoulder.

 

“You’ll get a speeding ticket…” she tried to sound composed, praying it was working to calm him at least a little bit.

 

“You’ll go back to some… _lab_ , and I’ll probably go to prison… unless they just kill me and tell my mother I shot myself in the head.”

 

“ _Mike._ Don’t talk like that.”

 

“I’m serious, El. Something is _wrong_. Otherwise we wouldn’t even be out here getting our shit stolen from us. We wouldn’t be having run-ins with cops. We wouldn’t be _homeless_ …”

 

“We’re going to be fine…”

 

“I know we are, I just have to think.”

 

El huffed out a frustrated breath, knowing that _Mike needs to think_ was code for _Mike needs it to be quiet_.

 

She rubbed her eyes, feeling the exhaustion pooling beneath them for the second time that night. She thought about whether or not she should ask Mike if she could drive so he could at least get a few more hours of sleep before the sun rose.

 

“I’m changing our course,” Mike said, resoluteness in his voice as if he was expecting her to protest. “That way, if they’re following or tracking us, we’ll throw them off a little.”

 

El nodded. She didn’t care which direction they went in anymore.

 

“Are you sure you’re awake enough to drive?”

 

“Yes, El, I’m alright. Go ahead and get some sleep, and we can switch when the sun comes up.”

 

“Mike, I want to tell you something.”

 

A part of her mind was screaming at her to stop. To wait. To practice what she wanted to say in her mind. She had kept this part of her from him for a _reason_.

 

She had looked many fears in the face, yet one of her greatest fears was the look in Mike’s eyes when she told him about the things she’d been through. What she’d done.

 

He softened then, perking up to hear what she had to say.

 

“What is it?”

 

El tried her hardest to take him in. She moved her left hand from her lap to play with his hair. Just to remember what it was like with him before he knew.

 

“Can we pull over for a minute?”

 

Mike glanced in her direction, getting ready to tell her why they couldn’t.

 

“Please?” she asked, cracking and showing her apprehension.

 

Mike sighed, and turned on his blinker. He veered them onto the shoulder of the dark highway, and once the car lurched to a stop, he turned the ignition off – probably to save the gas they didn’t have very much of.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

And then, looking into his kind eyes and finding a strange kind of peace, she told him.

 

She started with what he already knew. She went to find her mother, and what she’d found was… unsettling. It scared her. It made her feel like she’d made some kind of mistake – and she _hated_ that feeling. The slow ease of dread rolling into your mind. The _what have I done_ of it all. Like looking at your hands after you’ve hurt someone. _What have I done_.

 

He’d always known she’d gone to see her mother that fall – in fact he had gone with her a couple of times to visit later on, and she could tell he was trying to hide how hard it was for him. The happy childhood she could have had was right in front of him in the same way it was for her a few years prior. She had just gotten used to the feeling, but it was all new for him.

 

He knew she left her aunt’s house abruptly, without saying goodbye. He knew it must have made her uneasy – the haunting _what could have been_ hanging in the stale air.

 

But he didn’t know where she went.

 

And as she told him, she could see his expression twist from comforting and knowing to confused and concerned. When she told him that her mother showed her _a sister_ , his eyes widened and his eyebrows peaked. She could tell he was trying to relax them though, as not to make her nervous.

 

“She’s not my sister in the way that Nancy is yours,” El said, staring heavily at the hands in her lap. “We’re sisters by… circumstance.”

 

Mike studied the console between them with restless eyes, his brow tightened in concentration before he put a piece into place.

 

“Is she… a number? Like…”

 

His fingers moved to brush her wrist and El nodded, meeting his eyes. He looked _amazed_ rather than fearful.

 

“I _knew_ there were other numbers,” he whispered to himself.

 

She told him how she found herself in the bus station, and had come up with a fare to get her to Chicago because that was where she was supposed to go. Who better to understand and care for her than someone… _like_ her.

 

This was the first part she was afraid would hurt him – the thought of her getting on a bus, looking for another family. But he stayed still and unreadable this time. He must have been trying hard to keep his expression neutral. He nodded, encouraging her to keep going.

 

She told him about the dark alley way. The fire. The graffiti everywhere. The people who slept outside. He grimaced a little then.

 

“I’ve heard scary things about that part of Chicago,” were the first words he’d said in a while.

 

“It wasn’t any scarier than what we’ve seen in the past several hours,” she said, and pushed past it.

 

She went on to tell him about Kali and her powers – how they were different from her own. And Axel and Dottie. And Mick and Funshine. About how their rough-around-the-edges and seen-some-things exterior had made her nervous. But strangely _alive_ at the same time. She had felt like she _belonged_ with them and she knew they wouldn’t hurt her. Because she was like them – an outcast. A freak. Dangerous. On the run. And they’d _never_ hurt one of their own.

 

She told him – speeding up her words the more her confidence grew and her memories came flooding back – how good it felt for Kali to realize who she was. How weird and _wonderful_ it was to have someone – a real and tangible someone – there to understand how she felt.

 

She knew Mike felt deeply for her. She knew he worried. He fixated. He brooded. He tried his hardest to be there. But he couldn’t _understand._ He knew that, too. It was an insecurity of his, just like the things that made her different were an insecurity of hers. They loved each other through them.

 

She knew hearing her talk about Kali was confusing him. She was telling him all the good stuff. The happy stuff. That was just the easiest part.

 

“I get it,” Mike said, nodding. “But why didn’t you stay? You… sound like you miss them.”

 

“Just wait. I’m not finished.”

 

Her heart panged for him, then, and she reached out to touch his hand, which was fiddling with the hem of his jeans, his legs folded up in the seat.

 

“Kali was… mad,” El began, swallowing. She realized – she’d never actually said these words out loud before. Until right now.

 

“Mad at… _them_. And so was I. So, she told me that their mission was to right the wrongs that were done to her – to us – when we were young. She asked me to find a man. From the lab.”

 

“Find him for what?” Mike asked like he already knew what the answer was.

 

El stared at her hands in her lap.

 

“To kill him.”

 

She waited for him to get mad at her. Or to scold her. Or to look at her with fear or disgust or disapproval. Instead he just said,

 

“Well, that’s what he deserves if you ask me.”

 

“ _Mike._ ”

 

“What? Isn’t it? He took important things from you, El.”

 

 _I love him_ , she thought.

 

“Well, yes, but that’s not the point.”

 

He moved his feet up to the seat so he could rest his chin on his knees.

 

“I helped them find him, and we drove to his house in the middle of the night. They dressed me up. We wore masks. It was… fun. Until we broke in. And I was right in front of him and I was _so mad_ that I felt like I couldn’t see straight. And I was doing it. I was going to… kill him.”

 

Mike was watching her, unphased and enamored.

 

“And then I didn’t.”

 

He huffed out a breath and leaned back in his seat, like he’d just read the shocking ending of a book.

 

“I saw a picture of his family. I couldn’t do that to someone’s family. If someone did that to mine, I don’t know what I would do.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, I stopped. And Kali raised her gun to finish him off, and I threw it out the window.” A ghost of a weary smile crossed Mike’s face.

 

“We ran, and she told me how _wrong_ I was for taking away her chance at getting revenge.” El swallowed again, hot tears pressing against her eyes as she conjured the memory.

 

“That night, I went to find you. And I went to find Hopper. And you were in trouble and you needed me to help you. So, I left them and I came home. I watched Kali _search_ for revenge for all this hate and darkness she was holding on to, but I knew, if I came home, I wouldn’t need all that. I just needed you. All of you. In the end.”

 

Mike was blearily smiling at her by now, and he reached one of the hands that were hugging his knees to his chest out to cup her face, and his thumb wiped the stray tear that rolled down her cheek.

“I’m proud of you,” he said. “And I’m happy you came home.”

 

“I did the right thing,” she said. “But the right thing isn’t always so obvious.”

 

A beat passed between them.

 

“I need you to listen to me.”

 

“El…”

 

“I’m serious,” she said, feeling strong and holding her ground. “We need to take some money. How else are we going to make it back home? How are you going to get _something to eat_?”

 

“But – “

 

 _“Trust me_ ,” El said, gripping his wrists. “We won’t be stealing from the gas station attendants or managers or whoever – we’re actually taking from the owners. The money is insured. I – _we_ – won’t hurt them.”

 

He looked fairly defiant, so she said one more thing to convince him.

 

“I need the money so I can get you home safe. And I know you want to get me home safe too.”

 

“El, where did you even hear that stuff about stealing from the owners and the money being insured?”

 

“Kali,” El answered. “When we robbed a gas station.”

 

“You left that part out…” he said, leaning away from her back into his seat.

 

“I’ll cut the wires to the cameras,” El said. “We won’t load the gun. We’ll cover our faces. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

 

“ _Everything bad is going to happen_ ,” Mike countered. “What if the store manager pulls a gun on us?”

 

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t work for him.”

 

Mike huffed. _She was winning_.

 

The sun was starting to rise past the tree line, and if El wasn’t so consumed in the argument she was having she would have told Mike how beautiful she found it – the sun coming up on that new day he was talking about earlier.

 

“It’s Saturday,” Mike said, staring ahead at the tree line just like she had been “Can we bide our time until we hear from Hopper tomorrow? And then make a decision?”

 

El looked to him, tiredness around his caring eyes, and nodded.

 

“Only if we can sleep for a minute before we keep going.”

 

Just as they had before, Mike and El both effortlessly fell into exhaustion as the sun crept up higher in the sky. Before she was completely lost to the world, sharing her pillow across the middle console with Mike’s head nestled up beside hers, she felt him reach for her, and tenderly kiss the top of her head.

 

“I love you,” he said. “I’m glad you told me.”

 

“I love you too,” she sighed.

 

* * *

 

_July 2, 1989 – 7:28 PM_

_Hawkins, Indiana_

 

“It’s been almost a _fucking month_!”

 

“ _Max._ ”

 

“What? I’m right! This is getting ridiculous.”

 

He had regretted letting Will have his friends come over this Sunday the minute they stepped through the door, especially with the current state of things. Which was fairly stagnant if you asked him.

 

The only person who he felt _really_ trusted his instincts at this point – that there was still _someone_ out there looking for his kid – was Joyce. She sat shakily in the corner of the living room, looking a tired mix of both anticipating and dreading this. At Max’s harsh words, she took a drag from the cigarette that was perched in-between her fingers.

 

Joyce hadn’t had an easy time with Karen over the course of the past three weeks, who was absolutely obviously beside herself. Of course.

 

_How many times can something like this happen to our children, Jim? How many times?_

 

He could practically hear her shrill voice lecturing him, pacing in his office at the station in the same way Joyce had when her son went missing. This time around, though, Joyce knew what was going on. She knew all that was at stake. So, she put on a brave face for Karen who spent her days locked up in the Wheeler’s house, and for Holly who Will picked up for them to watch during the day to lighten her load.

 

Ted showed his face at the station every now and again, threatening to call a lawyer every now and again, but Hopper assured him that wasn’t necessary. He was looking as hard as he could – but he never specified who for.

 

Will was tired too, he noticed. He hadn’t been getting much sleep lately for obvious reasons. His pesky friends had been begging to come – to say hello at the very least – and Hopper had denied them the past couple of times. This past Saturday, when Will had asked him if they could _please_ join because they ‘wouldn’t leave him alone about it’ and ‘what harm would they do’, he relented. In the door poured Dustin and Lucas, with Max hot on their heels. And all three of them had a lot to say.

 

Jonathan had to work tonight, but Nancy was here – _only to pick up a casserole from Joyce for her mom, of course –_ and she sat in the armchair with her legs crossed and her arms across her chest. Silent.

 

The bigger crowd made him anxious, and the more members of _this_ particular group that assembled in his living room made him feel like _something was going to happen_. At least, then, his kid would get to come home.

 

He had tuned out the bickering between the teenagers sprawled on the rug, but Will spoke up, getting off the floor and sitting on the edge of the couch to remind him.

 

“It’s 7:30.”

 

The room hushed. They were all watching him. He hated that.

 

“Well…” Dustin prompted from the floor.

 

“She’ll blink the lights when she’s here.”

 

Glancing at his watch – 7:31 – he got a little more anxious. They were all waiting. Waiting for him to say something or to feel something that reminded them of El. The wait was agonizing, and it felt like hours were passing instead of seconds being marked by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the dining room. Just as he was going to make an excuse for her being late, the light bulb in the lamp to his right flickered on and off three times.

 

It caught everyone’s attention, and he saw Max sit up straighter, a twinge of excitement in relief in her eyes.

 

“Hey, kiddo.”

 

Like the past two times, a long silence.

 

“I don’t know if you can see them or not, but your friends are here this time. They’re annoying me, like usual.”

 

The lightbulb surged, shining a little brighter before dimming back down.

 

“In fact, Max here wants you to come home very soon. She misses you.” Surprisingly enough, Max shot him a thankful smile.

 

He went on about the week they’d had. About the Fourth of July celebrations going on around town. The fair was starting to set up – how he hoped she’d be home before the end of the fair. He knew she always loved going. Hopper hoped – wherever she was – she could do something to celebrate the Fourth.

 

He mentioned that Karen was doing okay. She wasn’t spectacular, but she was okay. Nancy and Joyce were seeing to that. Will had been watching Holly in her brothers’ absence.

 

He skirted around the big question she was likely looking for an answer to… but then again, maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was having a great time. Maybe she was getting to see beautiful places and make memories and have fun on a _real_ road trip – not just a quick drive into the city to go to the museum for a field trip.

 

He didn’t want to think about it too much, though. He’d hear all about it when she got home. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

 

“I’m sorry, kiddo. If I don’t hear anything by this time next week, I think I’m going to throw a team together and go looking.”

 

The lamp light blinked.

 

“I hope you’re not too disappointed,” he started, rubbing his face in his hands as he did so. “Go do something fun this week. Or go see something you’ve never seen before. We can’t wait to hear all about it when you get back home. Soon.”

 

A blink. More faint this time.

 

“I love you, kid.” Max lightly kicked him in the shin. “ _Geez_ , sorry. We all love you. Be safe out there.”

 

* * *

 

_Randall Park – Yakima, Washington_

 

Mike had honestly zoned out, trying not to focus on the slight wind-chill nipping through his sweatshirt. He was sitting on a park bench with El, who was _really_ zoned out and gripping onto his hand pretty tightly, squeezing it every so often.

 

He was _really_ banking on an all clear from Hopper telling them it was safe to go home. Because then, he knew exactly what he would do. He would drive to the nearest payphone, beg for someone to lend him some quarters, and call home for help.

 

If El opened her eyes and everything was the same… well, he didn’t want to think about that.

 

But he _had_ to.

 

The past couple of days had proved to him that he and El needed to make a drastic change if they were going to be able to keep moving. With every passing hour that he spent hungry, exhausted, smelly, and lost in thought, it seemed that El’s ‘harmless’ little idea of _fucking robbing a gas station_ was their best bet.

 

Nope. Scratch that. It wasn’t their best bet. It was pretty much their _only option._

 

Her hand twitched in his then, and his head jerked around looking for her eyes, but she remained still, sitting up straight as the breeze blew through her hair.

 

He couldn’t believe she was so afraid to tell him about where she went a couple of years ago. He understood not wanting to relive it – he hated talking about the tunnels, despite how _awesome_ Dustin thought they were when they rehashed the details of that one night in ’84. In normal circumstances – although he wasn’t sure what those would be – it _would_ have been awesome. But every time he thought about that place he thought about how _everyone literally almost died,_ the imaginative little kid planning elaborate campaigns and writing scary stories – the younger version of himself – shrunk smaller in his mind. Things like that change a person, after all.

 

So, Mike completely got it if El didn’t like talking about the parts of her past that scared her.

 

But it didn’t feel that way. She almost felt apprehensive for a different reason altogether. At the very least, he was relieved that she had felt that weight lift from her shoulders when she told him all about it. There was enough burden there for her already.

 

Her eyes snapped open then, and she sucked in a sharp breath – the way she always did when she woke up. He let go of her hand and moved it to rub her upper back, and she leaned in to him without breathing a word. Mike broke the silence.

 

“So?”

 

“Your sister was there this time. Nancy.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

El dropped her head on his shoulder and reached a hand up to wipe at her nose with the spare napkin he had found in the console a few minutes prior.

 

“And Max. Lucas, Dustin, Will again. Pretty much everyone.”

 

“What did they say?”

 

Mike held his breath, but he didn’t know why. He pretty much knew what she was going to say next.

 

“They’re tired. They want us to come home,” she sighed. “But we can’t yet.”

 

Mike took a deep breath and looked out across the little park they had been hanging out in for the past couple of hours waiting around. It was a pretty landscape in the summertime, and the mountains were visible up against the sky. Almost like a postcard.

 

“Well, we need to find a spot to get a good night’s sleep then.”

 

Mike wrapped his other arm around El to hug her closer to him so he could whisper.

 

“ _You’re going to have to teach me everything you know about committing a crime_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me! This chapter was hard to write for some reason, probably bc I feel so bad for them (which is my own fault, but oh well). But I'm SUPER excited to write/for y'all to read whats coming up next, so hopefully that one should be out sooner rather than later. 
> 
> Until then, thank you again for the kind words and encouragement. <3 ilysm


	6. Stand and Deliver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (belated in some cases) Valentines Day to you all, I hope you enjoy!!

_July 3rd, 1989_

_The Bickelton, Washington E-Z Mart – 6:36 AM_

 

“Just give me a minute, okay?”

 

El moved with confidence through the automatic doors, her sneakers squeaking a little on the freshly cleaned tile floor. It was early, and the sun was shining bright through the greasy window, making the whole store have this golden hue. It left much to be desired though, they were really in the middle of nowhere.

 

“Alright,” Mike said, splitting off from her and walking toward the refrigerator in the back, his hands fidgeting in the pockets of his jeans. There were three or four rows of snacks and maps and trinkets and car equipment for him to look thoroughly interested in. For the time being.

 

There was brace-faced teenager – the store clerk, presumably – sitting on a stool behind the register, mindlessly flipping through a trash magazine with one hand and sipping on a Pepsi with the other. He didn’t even look up when the door chimed their entrance. He only flipped a page and blinked.

 

_Good sign…_

 

El stepped up and leaned over the counter on her elbows and took a quick and completely natural glance around his workstation. Lottery tickets, cigarettes, weird little colorful energy pills, and gum were littered around him, and El couldn’t help but wonder how on earth he could put up with something like this. And so early in the morning. It smelled a bit like the gas they were pumping outside (not that he would even notice), and a lot like sticky sugar and pork rinds. The smell made El’s nose wrinkle up. She almost felt bad for him…

 

…Until El’s eyes landed on a little brown safe with a combination lock behind him, nestled under a stack of receipts and papers. _Too easy._

 

El cleared her throat to catch the kid’s attention, _just_ as the safe clicked open. By coincidence, of course.

 

“Excuse me?” she asked tapping her fingers, eyes still darting above her, looking around for…

 

_Aha!_ El thought. _There it is._ If the little red blinking light wasn’t a dead giveaway, the _Smile, Your On Camera!_ sign sure was, grammar mistake and all. The big yellow smiley face prompted a smile from her in response – one she knew no one would ever see.

 

“What can I do you for?” the kid said, monotoned. He didn’t even look up from his magazine.

 

“Your restroom?”

 

When El’s question couldn’t tear him away from his reading, she glanced towards the camera, and the wire that connected the device to its source of power split in two with a nearly silent _snap_ that almost sounded like a pencil dropping. Across the room.

 

“Oh… it’s right down that hall to the left,” he looked up at El this time and smiled, half-heartedly, before thumbing to the next page. _What on earth could be so fascinating in there…_

 

“Thanks…” she said.

 

For good measure, before she backed away, El felt the tiny recording mechanism in the camera, the one that just took a good, hard look at her face, shrivel up and burn into a tiny little ball of unusable, untraceable mush. An unalarming amount of smoke rose from the device, but that sure didn’t faze the clerk.

 

She smiled to herself before glancing over to Mike, who was sauntering around the candy isle, pretending to be particularly invested in a pack of Rollo’s.

 

Under his arm were a couple of ski masks and an ice scraper – _for a weapon?_ El wondered. _Could he be a little less obvious?_

 

Not like it mattered, though. Not like the clerk was paying a shred of attention. Not like the camera wasn’t already toast, all thanks to her.

 

El moved around the last isle, looking for the tampons, and _thank God,_ there they were.

Stuffing a box under her arm, she wandered around to some of the other sections grabbing a few things off the shelf to put in a small and inconspicuous pile behind one of the beer cooler displays. Some chips here, some Oreos there, not that much really. Just a little something to get them going.

 

_4th of July Sale!_ a bright, neon sign above the stack of coolers said. _Every 4 bottles of booze or 24 pack of Budweiser comes with a free cooler!_

 

_Hmm,_ El thought. _Since it’s on sale…_

 

She was just about to turn towards the bathroom (rather obviously) when the yellow boxes behind the freezer door caught her eye. She stopped in her tracks, her shoes squeaking, causing Mike’s head to pop up to attention before looking back down at his difficult candy selection.

 

_Can’t forget these_.

 

El discretely tossed a box of Eggos on top pile, and then walked back out to the center isle to find Mike’s head visible over the candy, now looking perplexed over a pack of gummy worms.

 

_Mike, if you can read my mind, please grab those gummy worms_ , El thought. She loved gummy worms.

 

She successfully caught his eye as she walked past the isle towards the bathroom, and gave him the subtlest of head nods. He nodded back. She could tell by the look on his face that he was nervous, but he was itching to go – his right hand on his back pocket.

 

Just as the bathroom door clicked shut, El took a deep, shaky breath.

She waited what seemed like five forevers – too nervous to even _pee_ , which was something she had actually planned on doing in here. But she was picturing Mike hastily shoving their pile of stuff into the bag they brought in, his hands all shaky and slow. Maybe he would accidently knock the display over. Or maybe all the crinkly candy bags would be too noisy. She imagined – or rather prayed – the clerk would remain immersed in his magazine and not notice that behind a rather artful stack of red, white, and blue coolers was her rather uncoordinated boyfriend, trying to be as stealthy and quiet and quick as he could – which, unfortunately, were qualities he just didn’t possess.

 

She paced, and shook her hands to shake her jitters. She wasn’t _scared_ , they just needed to rip the band-aid off. This was easy. This was a piece of cake. This was necessary.

 

In the middle of her internal self-justification, she heard Mike’s raised voice through the thin wooden door of the women’s room, and her heart jumped. Her body followed, and she acted – it felt entirely instinctual despite their thorough planning – grabbing the cold doorknob and yanking the door open.

 

“Ma’am! Ma’am. Don’t move!” The clerk called to her from behind the counter, where his hands were raised above his head. Mike was standing on the other side of the counter where she had been mere minutes ago, holding his gun rather steadily with both hands, the duffle bag full of their stuff open at his feet, with El’s Eggos nestled on top.

 

Mike glanced over to her, his face in some kind of wonderous shock, saying to her _Would you look at me? Would you look at what I’m doing right now?_

 

It was kind of cute.

 

“Take what you want, man, don’t hurt us!”

 

_What an idiot,_ El thought, _He didn’t even notice we came in together._

 

El entertained him anyway, putting her hands up too, and taking ginger steps towards the register. Mike smiled at her and _winked_.

 

Okay, it was really cute, actually.

 

“It’s alright,” she said, stepping behind the counter, her eye’s on Mike’s, which were wild with the rush of pointing a gun at someone’s head. “Just move.”

 

“He’ll _shoot you_.”

 

“No he won’t,” she responded almost eerily, a hint of a smile on her lips. This scared the kid, making him tremble and finally take his eyes off of the barrel of the gun and whip around to see just what El was doing.

 

“He wouldn’t hurt me.”

 

El used her head to motion the clerk to the side and she crouched down to the safe she’d cracked earlier, digging out a good third of the cash from the shelves. No need in taking it all, they didn’t want to be greedy although the gummy worms were probably evidence otherwise.

 

She rose back up she put the bills on the counter, and they slid easily off the counter and into the bag. Mike knocked the safety back on and stuck the pistol back in his pocket before reaching down to zip their duffle up. Easy as pie.

 

“I’m gonna call the police,” the kid squeaked.

 

In a swift move, Mike grabbed his gun again, and pointed it back at the clerk’s forehead. His hands shot back up and he closed his eyes, mumbling some kind of mercy plea.

 

“I thought I told you to shut up,” Mike said through gritted teeth.

 

El moved back around the counter, checking the ceiling one more time for any cameras she might have missed. She didn’t find any – it really must have been just the one on the wall next to the lottery tickets. A stupid place for one, if you asked her.

 

As the clerk continued to mumble about his mom and his cat and all the other people he mattered to, which was unnecessary considering Mike had never taken the safety back off, El ran to the back. She grabbed one last thing off the shelf, shoving it in a bag she had swiped from behind the counter.

 

“You can call the police,” El said, calmly from behind Mike. “You should actually. Your money is insured, you’ll get it all back… not that any of it actually belongs to you.”

 

Mike slowly lowered the gun, and threw the bag strap over his shoulder.

 

“I have to ask a favor though,” El said, almost flirtatious, as she stepped closer to the counter. “When the cops asked what we looked like, just tell them you’re looking for Jason from Salt Lake City. Green eyes. Greasy blonde hair. Last seen in Seattle. He’ll have exactly what you’re looking for.”

 

The clerk whimpered and nodded, and with that, El turned to run with Mike hot on her heels. She spun around quickly though, and at the last minute, made sure not to forget to swipe a post card.

 

Their car was sitting idle, gassing up during their pretty well-executed plan, and Mike tossed their bag of goodies through the open back window. He ripped the has nozzle out of the tank, nearly spraying gas all over the back windshield as he did so. They both scrambled into their seats and El felt Mike’s foot slam on the gas pedal, and her back hit the seat with a force that almost knocked the breath out of her.

 

Their tires squealed into the early morning stillness and made harsh, black marks on the cracked pavement as Mike drove as fast as El had ever _ever_ gone.

 

She let her eyes wander to Mike, because she felt like it had been a really long time since she had really looked at him, and he glanced back at her. A wistful, shocked, relieved, and _elated_ look was painted all over his face.

 

“ _Holy Shit!_ ”

 

\---------

 

They drove until they hit Utah, never hearing so much as a siren wailing in the distance. For some reason crossing yet another state line made them both feel more at ease. They had passed the time in between Bickleton and the Utah border by rehashing their _very_ exciting morning over and over again, each time with more detail on the last.

 

“You were supposed to grab the money yourself! Why didn’t you get him to just hand it to you?”

 

“I didn’t want to scare him too bad!”

 

El laughed, _really_ laughed, for the first time in a long while. Mike could be _robbing_ someone, and he still didn’t want to scare them.

 

“It was too late, you already scared him. Did you hear him try to protect me though? How sweet.”

 

“Yeah, he didn’t seem to have much planned other than _Ma’am don’t move he’ll shoot you!_ ” Mike mimicked, and El playfully slapped him on the arm. “You know, I never actually said anything about shooting anyone.”

 

“But you were pointing a gun at his head!”

 

“Yeah, but I never would have shot it.”

 

“ _I know_.”

 

“ _Hey,”_ he teased back almost knocking El’s soda out of her hand. She gasped in fake offense. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means I know you never would have shot him.”

 

“I would have if he tried to hurt you.”

 

“Really,” she deadpanned.

 

“Yes really!”

 

“Would you have shot Jason in Seattle?”

 

Even saying it out loud like that made the whole thing feel like _years and years_ ago, instead of just a few days. The mood in the car was light and teasing and filled with so much adrenaline and relieved smiles and lifted weights, but Mike still stiffened thinking about it.

 

“Of course I would have.”

 

His hands tightened around the steering wheel, and El really wanted to know exactly what was going through his head. A dramatic reimagining of their mishap a couple days ago with Mike heroically pulling their gun out on Jason in an epic standoff in which they somehow escaped unscathed and with all their belongings was her best educated guess.

 

“Doesn’t matter now,” El tried to gracefully move away from the still-raw wound. “Now we have cash. And gummy worms.”

 

She took a handful of said gummy worms out of the package in her lap, tossing one in her mouth. Just to prove her point.

 

“Apparently that’s all we need.”

 

It was a pretty damn good start compared to the night before, that was for damn sure.

 

It turned out that El had grabbed about $4,000 out of the safe, which wasn’t one hundred percent of their lost stash, but it was enough to get them through for a while. Adrenaline rush aside, El could tell Mike secretly hoped that their morning would be a one-time thing, and she hoped so too. They had been lucky – an inattentive attendant, a shitty camera, a well-thought out (or obsessed over, in El’s opinion) plan. It had all worked to their advantage, but there was a chance it wouldn’t work again.

 

Realizing they had only grabbed snack food, Mike had driven them through a nearby McDonald’s once they felt far enough away to show their faces in the light again. An actual meal tasted outright _delicious_ , and El had been snacking all day since then – pretty much making up for lost time over the past several days.

 

She had forgotten what it felt like to not know where your next meal was going to come from, but she could handle that. It was way worse watching Mike find out what it was like.

 

He looked happy again, almost back to his old self – the one that loved to tell her stories and make her laugh and take her to new places and show her new things. She turned to look at him just when he pulled her out of her thoughts.

 

“And when you said that shit about the money. How bad ass was that?”

 

They passed though Salt Lake City with glares on their faces – which were probably unnecessary, considering Jason probably lied to them about everything, but still. It felt a little good.

 

It was a pretty city though, nestled in the mountains, and El sighed wistfully while looking out the window at the evergreens and the buildings and the steeples on the church. She loved cities, no matter how cold they had been to her in the past.

 

They pressed on though, grateful for the extra hour they got crossing back in to Mountain Time, and El decided she liked it out here, too. It was majestic – unlike anything that her history books could recreate. The mountains looked real and stoic, and they towered over their little car, making her feel small In comparison.

 

When the sun finally _finally_ started to meet the horizon behind them, turning the bright sky into striking shades of pink and orange and blue, Mike veered them off the highway and toward the one thing El had been waiting on for the longest time. A bed.

 

There was a Super 8 – she never thought she’d be so happy to see one – perfectly looped around a Dominos Pizza, Applebee’s, and a Stake and Shake.

 

_Heaven_.

 

Mike thought so too, because he let out a whispered “hell yeah,” when they made it around the bend to see the fluorescent parking lot of their absolute _dreams._

 

They were in Price, Utah, a small town off Highway 191, or at least that’s what the maps said inside the motel office. It dawned on El then that they hadn’t used a map all day long – Mike had just driven them on instinct in whichever direction he thought would be safest. She would just love to know how his mind worked, sometimes.

 

El was feeling particularly affectionate, probably from the leftover giddiness that came with pulling off an _armed robbery_ , and she snuggled up to Mike’s left arm, wrapping herself around it, causing him to spare her a glance in between failed attempts to get someone’s attention by ringing the service bell. He touched his head on top of hers in response and she sighed, a smile warming her lips.

 

This was _exactly_ where she wanted to be.

 

“Single or double?” A burly, bearded man asked as he came around the corner to sit behind the desk.

 

_Single_. El thought.

 

“Double’s fine,” Mike said.

 

El had to close her eyes quick no one would see them roll all the way back in her head.

 

The motel attendant seemed to notice, and with a chuckle he reached for a key out of one of the desk drawers.

 

“Alrighty then,” he passed the key to Mike. “All yours.”

 

It was all theirs and it was _glorious_ , because this one actually had a TV. El almost jumped when she saw it. She had no idea exactly how long it had been since she’d gotten to watch any of her shows. She burst through the door, leaving Mike in her wake and completely forgetting about being irritated at him for the whole double room thing. She flopped down on the bed closest to the bathroom and turned the TV on, and sighing happily when she saw it buzz to life.

 

“I guess you don’t know what you have til it’s gone, huh?” Mike said, tossing their bags back on his bed.

 

El nodded, eyes wide and unmoving from the cartoon on the screen. She didn’t even know this one, she was just happy to have something else occupy the space in her brain.

 

Mike laughed, and reached to grab the remote but she pulled it straight into her hands before he got the chance, keeping her eyes locked on the screen.

 

“Hey! I just wanna turn it down. You don’t even care about this show.”

 

El turned it down herself, before turning to give Mike her full attention.

 

“Yes?”

 

“What do you want for dinner? We’ve got a lot of options outside it seems like. And I’m hungry.”

 

She didn’t really have a preference, but while she sat mulling it over in her head, she had an idea. A really _good_ idea. An exciting idea. She could feel her features lighting up, and she knew Mike noticed, because he was just looking at her all adorably confused.

 

“Let’s go on a date!”

 

He blinked.

 

“When we get back home?”

 

“ _No_ , right now.”

 

Mike’s brow furrowed as he tried to follow her.

 

“To the… Applebee’s then?”

 

“Um…” El thought, the gears in her head turning. “No. Hold on.”

 

She got up from her spot on the bed and grabbed the car keys off the entry table, where Mike had sat them minutes ago.

 

“Where are you going?” Mike called after her, but she was already halfway out the door.

 

It took her a minute, but she finally found what she’d been looking for, rolled up under the passenger seat after their long day of driving.

 

After let herself back into their room, Mike was still sitting on the foot of his bed, right leg bouncing up and down and his eyebrows raised, waiting to see what was so important that she couldn’t tell him what it was.

 

“What goes with this?” El asked, as she pulled a bottle of white wine out of a crumpled up brown bag in the same way that a magician would pull a rabbit out of a hat. So much so that Mike had to laugh. Just a little.

 

“Where on earth did you get that?”

 

“The gas station.”

 

“I didn’t put that in our bag…”

 

“Well I grabbed it anyway. To celebrate.”

 

“El, I have never seen you drink wine. Or anything really. Do you even know if you like it?”

 

“No, but your mom does. It can’t be too bad.”

 

A little more of a laugh escaped from his mouth.

 

“ _And_?”

 

“ _And_ who cares, it was the first thing I saw,” El said, setting the bottle down on the card table by the TV.

 

“Don’t you remember that time you just _had_ go to that party and I told you it was a bad idea?”

 

“…Yes,” El did remember. It had been a bad idea, but it had also been a fun time. She could _so very_ clearly picture the absolute disgust on Max’s face when three of the guys from the football team started to shotgun their beers right next to her and that mental image alone was enough to make her laugh on her saddest days.

 

“And you had two drinks and decided you hated it?”

 

_I hated the whole ‘loss of control’ part,_ El remembered. _Not the drinks themselves, not really._

 

But she still said, “…Yes.”

 

“And that was pretty much it. That was all the partying we did in high school.”

 

El rolled his eyes, because every time Mike acted like he didn’t like the pretentious party scene, it sounded just a _little bit_ like he was jealous that he didn’t get to enjoy it that much.

 

“Well good thing this isn’t a party, this is a date.”

 

The smile returned to his face and he let out another laugh, running his right hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes.

 

“What?” she asked.

 

“You’re just… you’re funny.”

 

El huffed.

 

“The TV says it’s romantic.”

 

“Well if _the TV_ _says_ …”

 

El rolled her eyes again, and Mike finally took the hint to quit teasing her about the whole wine thing and the whole date thing.

 

“Pizza probably,” he answered. “Pizza’s Italian, this wine looks… like it was at the very least _inspired_ by Italy.”

 

“What do you know about wine?”

 

“Not a thing,” Mike laughed again. “We’ll grab a pizza and go on a date if that’s what you want.”

 

“Alright, let’s go!” El said, bounding out the door and toward the Dominos, not even checking to see if Mike was behind her, because she already knew he was.

 

A good twenty minutes later, Mike and El sat cross legged and opposite each other on her bed, open pizza box in front of them, and two plastic cups from the bathroom filled just a _little_ too full of gas station pinot grigio balanced on the lid. Mike leaned over to pick up his first slice, as he reached back to the night stand at the same time for the remote.

 

“I think it’s almost the Fourth, I wonder if there’s a special on or something.”

 

“ _Mike_.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“We’re on a date, remember?”

 

“Oh! Yes. Sorry.” Mike threw the remote over his shoulder like it had suddenly caught fire and it landed and bounced on his bed behind him, making El giggle. “It’s a little hard to remember with… you know… _today_ and all.”

 

“It’s okay,” El said, reaching sheepishly for her plastic cup of wine – that she was justly proud of. She knew Mike was watching her intently, waiting to see her nose scrunch up when she tasted it and didn’t like it like she knew he thought she would.

 

She tried extra hard when she took a fairly large sip _not_ to scrunch up her nose and… _look appreciative_ of the wine that was bitter but also like butter but also kind of tasted like flowers. El couldn’t decide if she like this weird combination of bitter and butter and flowers but she smiled back at Mike from across their pizza box as soon as she’d swallowed it.

 

“So, what do you think?”

 

She couldn’t really describe it. And she knew if she told Mike she thought it tasted like flowers he would never drink it.

 

“It’s… not what I thought it was going to taste like.”

 

“Do you hate it?”

 

“No…”

 

“Do you like it?”

 

“I don’t know… I think so…” El said, taking another sip for emphasis. “I bet it tastes better from one of those swirly glasses your mom has.”

 

When Mike didn’t immediately pick up his cup, so El egged him on.

 

“Your turn.”

 

“Alright, _fine_ ,” Mike said, but she knew he was just teasing her again. He seemed a little lighter now, probably partially due to the food he was finally getting to eat. El felt lighter too, laughing wholeheartedly at how his eyes went all squinty after he drank and asked, “Does it kind of taste like dirt to you?” before taking another bite of his pizza. “Not dirt in a _bad_ way, of course…”

 

With each drink she took, the probably _very_ cheap and not-so-romantic wine El stole from a gas station went down a little easier. Which proved to be a wonderful thing, because before long their pizza was nearly gone, El poured the final drops of the wine in their now sticky plastic cups, and she felt really – _bubbly._ That was the best word for it. (Actually, she knew _tipsy_ was the real word because she heard Nancy talking about it one time, but it didn’t quite fit.) And Mike was laughing so hard he was turning red in the face. She was laughing too. It was so refreshing, being able to really laugh.

 

“ _And then_ …” El gasped between giggles, “Max just gave Kerry Masterson that _look._ You know the one.”

 

He nodded, his eyes squeezed shut, a hand covering his mouth so he wouldn’t piss off their neighbors, but the story continued between unescapable laugher that was bubbling out of El’s mouth.

 

“ _And I know you remember what she said_. _What she said to him. I’ll never forget it. In my whole life._ ”

 

“Oh my god, _of course I do_.”

 

“She… she just goes… ‘ _Kerry maybe the other girls in the Junior class want your beer and saliva all over them, but that doesn’t mean I do!_ ”

 

Mike really lost it then, swatting El off when she tried to keep going with the story so that he could catch his breath. She took the small break she’d been given to knock back the rest of her wine – the last of the bottle too. There was still a little left in Mike’s cup, but the bottle was sitting empty on the bedside table, worn in after what felt like an eternity of refills.

 

“ _Oh my god, his face. His face was priceless, El.”_ That was all it took, and she was laughing all over again, Kerry Masterson’s dumbfounded face playing on repeat in her head. It took them a couple minutes to compose themselves. El wiped a tear – a happy one – out of the corner of her eye as she watched his face slowly turn back to a normal hue.

 

He gasped and straightened up then, looking at her with the wonder of a freshly remembered story in his eyes. Hopefully another funny one.

 

“You know what was even more priceless?” He moved his cup up to his mouth to drink the last of what he had. “The look on Troy Madigan’s face when you _made him piss his pants_ in 7th grade.”

 

There was a beat, and then they simultaneously burst into yet another fit of laughter. It rebounded around the room, and it made El feel so giddy, all she could do was nod. Nothing at all seemed too serious, at least not right now.

 

Mike sighed once they got quiet again, holding her gaze from across their makeshift cardboard table.

 

“I was _so_ in love with you then, it just didn’t know it.”

 

“ _Mike_ … El felt blush creeping up behind her cheeks as she pulled her knees up to hug her chest. “I think that was the third day you knew me.”

 

“Second,” he said, and shrugged. “Technically.”

 

And that was all he had to say about that, because he turned and started folding up the pizza box and taking the remnants of their date to the trash can. El just watched him with her head cocked to one side, until he tossed her toiletry bag and folded up pajamas to her and they landed with a bounce on her bed. She let him go first (mostly because she was just a bit too lazy and spin-y to get up at the moment) and she laid back and sighed a contented sigh, watching the ceiling fan spin round and round and round and…

 

“Hey,”

 

El sat up abruptly, like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I had fun tonight,” Mike said, his head poking out from the bathroom door, toothbrush handing out of his mouth. “On our date.”

 

“Me too,” El smiled back at him, slowly getting up to grab her pajamas off the bed to change.

 

“Maybe I can take you out again sometime?” he called from the bathroom.

 

She laughed, and she got up to meet him at the bathroom door to switch places – a routine they’d gotten really good at.

 

“Maybe,” she smirked up at him from the bathroom door frame.

 

Within minutes, teeth were brushed, pajamas were on, and Mike had retreated back to his bed on the other side of the room, much to El’s discreet dismay. She was trying to make it obvious without being _too_ obvious. Sighing a lot, looking at him with a ‘lost in thought’ look on her face, even reaching her hand across the space between them so that he would hold her hand – just for a second. But he didn’t get any hints, he just squeezed her palm before leaning back wrapping himself up in his comforter.

 

“Goodnight, El, I love you.”

 

She withdrew, and did the same, wrapping herself up in blankets and nestling her head against her pillow. It didn’t even feel like hers anymore, though. Almost all of the homey smell had faded away. Now it just smelled like car. And motel. And a teensy hint of wine.

 

“I love you too.”

 

With a blink, she clicked the light off, and they were surrounded in darkness and silence, besides the sounds of him getting settled. It always took him a minute. El knew, because she’d spent every night for almost a _month_ listening to him from across too many rooms. Way too many rooms.

 

Just as quickly the happy, bubbliness had filled her, a weird _something else_ took its place. Her pulse quickened and her mind raced and she tossed and turned until she was facing away from him. A frown grew on her face like a weed, and she could feel it building, although she _begged_ it to stop. Her lip trembled and she ever so quietly moved her hand to cover her mouth as one tear raced down her cheek to her pillow.

 

_Why, El,_ she thought. _Why are you crying right now?_

 

She knew why, and it was racing through her blood stream. It was her biggest fear, and it had finally caught up to her after all this time of running away from it. _Oh my god, oh my god. Please, calm down._

 

She felt like she was going to throw up, and there was no way to stop it. It was coming out, like vomit, one way or another. She had to ask him. She had to tell him. She had to…

 

“Mike,” El said, her voice cutting sharp across the silence and startling Mike out of his almost sleep.

 

“Yeah?”

 

She didn’t even think before the next few words spilled out of her mouth.

 

“Are you scared of me?”

 

There was a little bit of a tremble in her voice but she was able to swallow the tears as she rolled around to face his side of the room again, despite the darkness between them.

 

“What?” Mike asked, sitting up and reaching for the light switch. Once he turned it on, the room was illuminated again and El squinted. “No… what makes you –“

 

“Is that why you keep getting us double rooms?” El looked away from him and up towards the ceiling fan again, because she didn’t want to see the confused look he was giving her because _of course_ he would have no earthly idea what she was talking about. She already knew what that expression looked like on his always kind, always loving face.

 

“ _What_?”

 

Yep, that was the voice that went with the face she was so keenly avoiding. He was confused by her abrupt question that he was almost laughing because he thought she might be joking with him.

 

“You always say you want a double room.”

 

“ _Seriously_ , what are you talking about,” he sighed then, exasperated. “Look at me.”

 

“Admit it.” El did look, turning her head over to see Mike propped up on his elbow and squinting at her through the harsh light. “You’re scared of me.”

 

“I won’t admit it, because it’s not true, and I have no idea where this is coming from…” he rambled on, shaking his head.

 

“I’ve done all those scary things…” El trailed, looking back to the ceiling. “Hurt all those people…” her voice wavered again as she saw their eyes flash in her mind. The tears she had swallowed earlier were fighting their way back to her eyes.

 

“I know. I don’t think that means _you_ are scary, though.” He was softer now, but it didn’t matter. Or at least, it didn’t feel like it when he was _all the way across the room_.

 

“Yes, it does. You know all about me and I scare you and _I get it_. I just wish you could admit it.” El could feel herself beginning to ramble, and she would have kept going and going if he didn’t stop her.

 

“El.”

 

She shut her mouth and closed her eyes. She didn’t know what she wanted to hear from him. On one hand she didn’t want to be lied to – not about something like this. It was _okay_ that he was scared of her because most people would be, if they knew. Most rational thinking normal people. She thought about it _so_ often, about the kids at school that knew her but didn’t _know_. About how they’d probably either run and hide and beg for mercy, or how they’d make her show them party tricks and force her into elaborate pranks.

 

What if Mike would have been one of those rational thinking normal people? And what if she found him, and loved him, and told him about everything? He’d run away, wouldn’t he? He’d either run away or look at her like a _toy_ instead of a person. She had been keeping it buried for so long – for as long as she could remember.

 

She was terrified of being feared.

 

Especially by him. He probably still had nightmares about all the horrifying things she’d done in front of him, even though he said he wasn’t. They had been so close ever since they left home, but he had been so hard to reach – pulling away from her, almost. She was sure of it. And what better reason than fear?

 

Mike sighed again, mercifully pulling her from her thoughts – ones she was dangerously close to spewing out loud. He stood up this time, took two steps, and knelt down so that he was eye level with her.

 

EL sighed. She loved his eyes.

 

“You do not scare me. You fascinate me.”

 

“But – “

 

“I think you are an incredibly strong person and I’m proud of you.”

 

El sniffed, the warm look on his face so comforting that the rambling voice in her head slowly melted away. She looked up at him and blinked as he pushed the hair out of her face.

 

“Can I…” he asked, and El wordlessly moved towards the center of the bed to make room for him, tucking her head onto his shoulder, right where she had always fit. His arm draped lazily around her shoulder, and his fingers began tracing little loving circles on her sleeve – just as if they had just begun a rainy movie marathon in his basement on a Saturday afternoon. It made her smile.

 

“I always got us double rooms because I thought it was the… right thing to do, I guess? And because I thought you might want your space since we’d been in the car right next to each other all day.”

 

El could hear his heart beating in his chest now, oh how she had missed that sound.

 

“And also, because I’m kind of an idiot.”

 

“You’re not an idiot.”

 

“I can be though, sometimes.”

 

They laid there in silence for a minute, and without another word, El’s eyes started to drift shut. Neither of them moved an inch, but the light popped off and Mike laughed, just a little, before turning around so that he could face her El’s peeled her eyes back open, and once they did, she saw him – looking at her in that way that always made her stomach do flips.

 

“You know, I always knew there was more to be said about everything that’s happened to you. And I didn’t want to push, because I figured it was just… hard for you to say, but also because I was afraid of what you were going to tell me.”

 

He took a breath, his face concentrated like he was trying hard to figure out just how to put his thoughts into words.

 

“Everything that you’ve been through makes me mad, but it also scares me because I can’t explain or control it. Or fix it. I just want you to be happy. And safe. And it hurts to think about the times when you weren’t.”

 

She reached to pull him a little closer then, level with his eyes so that he could see the smile slowly grow across her face despite the darkness. She reached up with her right hand, and touched her pointer finger to his nose.

 

“I love you.”

 

Instead of answering right away, he leaned down, his eyes dancing across her face before landing finally back on her eyes. El breathed out a smile, and before she knew it he leaned in to kiss her and she felt like she was flying. Not that she didn’t always feel like she was flying, but she felt like things were finally turning back to normal (or, at least, their twisted little version of normal) and she felt the fuzziness of home and pure _joy_ moving through them all coming from the smooth press of his lips against hers.

 

It was like nothing else.

 

She held on to Mike a little tighter around his rib cage and she pouted when he pulled back from her, only so he could look at her again with those eyes she loved so much.

 

“I love you too,” he said, as she settled into his chest, hearing his heartbeat again – slower this time as he breathed deep and pressed one more kiss to the top of her head.

 

El fell asleep that night, so peaceful and completely wrapped around her boyfriend, who could kind of be an idiot sometimes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for sticking with me!! I know I take forever in between chapters, but I think they turn out a lot better this way. I hope you liked this one - a bit of a lighter end than usual. I love them and its Valentines Day and I'm feeling like we all need a little fluff in our lives. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!! I'm hoping to have the next one up soon. Believe it or not, we're kind of getting to the thick of things... Until then! <3


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